Small Business

David Lammy: Thirty-nine organisations in the Yorkshire and Humber region have participated in the skills pledge, but my hon. Friend will be aware that large companies such as Sainsbury's, Tesco and the Royal Mail have also signed up to the pledge. The most essential programme in her constituency, as in others, is Train to Gain, with its more than £1 billion-worth of investment over this comprehensive spending review period. That engagement of employers with a broker and local colleges in skilling up their work forces is what will produce results in my hon. Friend's constituency.

Tim Boswell: Does the Minister agree that, while it is fine for larger and leading organisations to commit to the skills pledge, it is equally important and yet a great deal more difficult to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to participate actively? Will he ensure that the minimum of bureaucracy is required, and does he acknowledge that the maximum of encouragement is expected from Government to ensure their participation, both in apprenticeships and other structured training programmes?

Rosie Cooper: Is the Minister aware that parts of West Lancashire are among the most deprived in the country? Public transport links are not good throughout the constituency and are particularly poor from places such as Skelmersdale. That disadvantages young people who want to attend either the university within the constituency or those on our borders. Given that the odds can be stacked against young people from low-income families, does the Minister not agree that we must provide as much support as possible to improving young people's access to higher education and the career opportunities that that will give them in later life?

Brian Iddon: My hon. Friend will know that the university of Bolton has a fine record of attracting people from all walks of life. However, he also knows that there is a high drop-out rate across the country—the university of Bolton is included in that. What more can we do to help retain students who are attracted to universities and help them to stay in the courses that they have opted to study?

Bill Rammell: This is extremely important, although it is important to put it into context. We have some of the lowest drop-out rates in the advanced world. The recent Public Accounts Committee report included two tables. If we look at the one that includes both those students who transfer to another university and those who achieve a different higher education qualification, we get a more realistic picture. It shows that non-completion rates have reduced consistently since 1998.

Bill Rammell: We have discussed this in the Select Committee on Innovation, Universities and Skills, and we regularly conduct research into these issues. There has been an increase in the proportion of students from lower socio-economic groups applying to and being accepted by universities. I want that to be higher, which is why we have a host of policies in train to achieve that. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would join me in celebrating last week's figures on applications to study at university next year. They show a significant overall increase of more than 7 per cent. and an increase in the proportion of applications from lower socio-economic groups.

Bill Rammell: The hon. Gentleman is wrong in his claim that a fifth of students leave university within a year and I ask him to go back to the figures and look at what he is saying. The figures can be made to add up for the claim that £200,000 is spent for every widening-participation student, but only if the total money spent on widening access for all less well-off and disabled students is divided by the total number of additional full-time students from lower socio-economic groups. However, that excludes part-timers, mature students and those students from better-off backgrounds whom we nevertheless want to encourage to apply to all universities, especially the selective universities. The hon. Gentleman needs to address that point.
	As for so-called student debt, I understand that the Conservatives are still committed to a real rate of interest for repayments on student loans. We should have a comment from them about whether that is still the case, because it would do nothing to help students.

Stephen Williams: A young person whose parents have had degree-level education or who come from a professional background is more than four times more likely to access higher education as someone whose parents have a manual occupation and have not been educated to degree level. Given that, does the Minister not think that some of the widening-participation budget that is allocated for retention, which has already been mentioned, might actually be more appropriately spent by universities on targeted outreach work for individuals from schools that traditionally do not access higher education?

Judy Mallaber: In assessing how this welcome programme can involve women, will my hon. Friend look in particular at the recent Select Committee report, "Jobs for the girls", which considered the impact of occupational job segregation on the worrying continuing gender pay gap and the waste of skills in the economy? Will he particularly look at the issues included on how to encourage women over 25 to have the confidence to go into non-traditional jobs, on how the drop-out rate is partly the result of low pay—

Phil Willis: I am pleased that since 2003-04 we have seen the doubling of completion rates for apprenticeships at both level 2 and level 3, but will the Minister tell us what he will do, first, to make sure that retention and completion rates are higher and, secondly, to disincentivise employers who train people to a particular level but then drop the apprenticeship because the people are economically useful to the company—because that is one of the huge barriers to young people completing their apprenticeship?

John Hayes: I do not want to be excessively brutal with the Minister—[Hon. Members: "Go on."] No, I know that he is desperately worried about being forced to repeat what he reluctantly acknowledged at the previous departmental questions, which is that the number of apprentices is falling at all levels. The Leitch report makes it clear that reskilling and upskilling adults who are already in the work force is vital to our economic future, so can the Minister tell us, ideally without more banter and bluff, why the number of adults not yet skilled to level 2, on all types of Learning and Skills Council-funded provision, including workplace training, has plummeted by 620,000—a staggering 42 per cent.—in the past two years?

David Lammy: My hon. Friend is right that in relation to women, there are two issues that are important for engineering. We should make the system flexible enough, and we should have enough advanced apprenticeships to ensure that women returning to work after having children can progress within the profession. I am grateful for the work that we have been able to do to fund WISE—the initiative within engineering to help women return to work—and for the increased places in advanced apprenticeship. The Science, Engineering, Manufacturing Technologies Alliance and the sector skills councils that cover the range of engineering skills are doing a great deal of work to advertise to women and to ensure that those places are available for them to take up if they want to.

David Willetts: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for acknowledging that I gave him advance notice of the question. It sounds as though we are going to get the regulations amended in light of the points that I made to him. Let us be clear about this. In the past month, he has admitted that prisoners have received hundreds of thousands of pounds in student maintenance because of what he called an unjustifiable provision in his regulations, and this morning he has said that he is going to change the regulations again because of another mistake in the rules of access to maintenance grant. So prisoners have been getting money that they should not and students can claim money that they are not supposed to get. Why is his Department so incapable of getting the right money to the right students under these regulations?

Bill Rammell: I say to the hon. Gentleman that the move from six modules to four has been widely welcomed, along with the greater use of synoptic questions and the extended project. All the indications are that universities greatly welcome those changes as a means of improving what is already a very good qualification.

Simon Burns: Will the Secretary of State use his Department's influence with the Learning and Skills Council to see whether it can provide funding for projects such as "Mentoring for U" at Chelmsford prison? The project does fantastic work in helping dyslexic prisoners tos improve their literacy skills, which helps with their rehabilitation and gives them a better start once they leave prison.

John Denham: I would be happy to discuss the details of the issue that my hon. Friend raises with him. In general, he is right that this country, contrary to what is often said, has a strong manufacturing base. We are still the sixth largest manufacturer in the world. However, our future lies in high value added manufacturing, which depends on having the research capability and the skills in the work force to do the best engineering and manufacturing. Skills are at the heart of that, and I would be pleased to discuss with my hon. Friend the work at the Vauxhall Motors.

Helen Goodman: The business for the week commencing 25 February will be:
	Monday 25 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to international development followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [6th allotted day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to international development.
	Tuesday 26 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to the effectiveness of the EU institutions and EU decision making, followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [7th allotted day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to the effectiveness of the EU institutions and EU decision making, followed by motion to approve a local government restructuring order relating to Cheshire.
	Wednesday 27 February—Debate on the treaty of Lisbon provisions relating to climate change, followed by continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [8th allotted day]—any selected amendments to clause 2 relating to climate change and remaining amendments on clause 2.
	Thursday 28 February—A debate on Welsh affairs.
	Friday 29 February—Private Members' Bills.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 3 March will include:
	Monday 3 March—Continuation of consideration in committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [9th allotted day] covering clauses 3 to 7.
	Tuesday 4 March—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [10th allotted day] covering clauses 3 to 7 not completed on 3 March.
	Wednesday 5 March—Continuation of consideration in Committee of the European Union (Amendment) Bill [11th allotted day] covering clause 8, the schedule, new clauses and new schedules.
	Thursday 6 March—A debate on women's representation in democracy.
	Friday 7 March—Private Members' Bills.
	I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 6 and 13 March will be:
	Thursday 6 March—A debate on the International Health Partnership.
	Thursday 13 March—A debate on the report from the Joint Committee on Human rights on the human rights of older people in health care.

Helen Goodman: The hon. Gentleman began by raising the consideration of the Bill to enact the Lisbon treaty. He knows very well that we wanted to give the House a proper opportunity for substantial consideration of the Bill. We have set out a process, which the House agreed following a full debate, that enables the House to have a discussion on the substantive issues, as well as giving time to consider amendments. The Opposition, moreover, accepted that approach in their own programme motion. Furthermore, the Government promised to be flexible with respect to the timetabling on individual days, and we have been flexible. We were flexible yesterday, giving three hours for the amendments as well as three hours for the general debate. The suggestion that there has not been proper consideration for this Bill is quite ridiculous. We have allowed 12 days for the Committee of the whole House, which is more than the Committee stages for the Nice and Amsterdam treaties and the Single European Act put together.
	The hon. Gentleman went on to raise the issue of waits in ambulances for A and E. I do not know whether he is aware of the fact that, in the past two years, 98 per cent. of patients were seen, diagnosed and treated within four hours. In the last quarter for which we have statistics, 2.7 per cent. of people waited more than four hours, and in the quarter before that it was 1.7 per cent. It is quite wrong for the hon. Gentleman to scaremonger in this way.
	The hon. Gentleman then went on to talk about the HM Revenue and Customs bonuses. The bonuses that were paid in— [ Interruption. ]

Helen Goodman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
	The bonuses paid in 2007-08 were for work carried out in 2006-07. In line with the wider civil service, bonuses are paid to encourage and reward officials and to enable HMRC to improve its performance and service to taxpayers and the Government.
	The hon. Gentleman then complained about student dropouts. The truth is that we rank fifth in the OECD in the first degree completion rates. We have a survival rate of 78 per cent., which is far better than that of most countries in the European Union.
	On defence spending, the hon. Gentleman once again indulged in some quite ridiculous scaremongering. The truth is that, in cash terms, the United Kingdom is the second highest spender on defence; we are second only to the United States. The increases that have been agreed in the comprehensive spending review baseline represent an average 1.5 per cent. real-terms increase over the next few years.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of deportations. I think that those points were perfectly well answered by the Prime Minister yesterday, but if the hon. Gentleman or any other hon. Member has any further questions on the issue, they can raise them in Home Office questions on Monday.

Robert Smith: In answering the question about defence, the Deputy Leader of the House talked about the amount of money spent by the Government, but the crucial issue is the burden placed by the Government on soldiers in the front line. The International Development Committee visit to Afghanistan revealed how vital it is to have adequate helicopter support because the transport situation is so difficult. A defence statement would be useful, so we could ask questions on the real impact on the ground of helicopter deployments.
	When the Government brought in modernisation, it was put to us that the whole point of timetabling was to improve scrutiny, but as we saw with the Northern Rock Bill, if timetabling is not handled properly, we do not get effective scrutiny, and the Government were unable to deal adequately with concerns in the House about the Granite vehicle, which so affected what exactly the Government were nationalising. Will the Deputy Leader of the House ensure that, on vital issues such as Northern Rock, we have proper time for debate?
	I declare my entry in the Register of Members' Interests in respect of energy matters to do with my shareholding in Shell and to do with the offshore oil and gas industry. I also remind the House that I am vice-president of Energy Action Scotland, a fuel poverty charity. I call for a debate on fuel prices and note that yet more price rises for the country to contend with are revealed today. The Government have relied on low fuel prices to tackle fuel poverty, but we desperately need more investment and effective measures for warm homes. The Government need to explain how they intend to deal with their increased VAT take as prices rise and with the increased profits for the fuel companies that have come from carbon tax allocations.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) has prayed against the changes in immigration regulations and would like to see that matter debated on the Floor of the House so that Members can express their concerns about how those changes might impact on people. In previous questions, my hon. Friend has welcomed the fact that we are to have debates on Welsh affairs and women's affairs, but when Commonwealth day comes, may we also have a debate on Commonwealth issues, which would allow a wide range of concerns to be raised across the House?
	Finally, in the Christmas Adjournment debate I raised issues about the Post Office and the Deputy Leader of the House arranged for the Minister with responsibility for the Post Office to reply in writing, but it would be useful to have a debate now on the progress of the post office closure programme now, so that Members confronted by it could inform the House about how it is working on the ground. Those of us who represent the north-east of Scotland will have to wait until May to find out, but we still need to know how the closure programme will happen. The Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs has said that if we save a post office, we do not necessarily have to close another one in lieu. Many Members are saying, apocryphally, that that is not the message they are getting on the ground with the current closure programme. A debate on the post office closure programme would therefore be extremely timely and would help us to understand exactly what the Government require of the Post Office.

Helen Goodman: The hon. Gentleman began by raising the issue of resources in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am sure he is aware that the financial resources for work in those countries is over and above the normal defence budget expenditure. He went on to raise questions about the handling of the Banking (Special Provisions) Bill. When it was decided to bring that measure forward, it was felt important that the House should have the opportunity to agree with how it would progress. That is why there was a debate on the programme motion on Tuesday. All stages are being properly gone through here and in the other place. Opposition Members tend to want it both ways: on the one hand, they say they understand the reasons for expediting the legislation, but on the other hand, they complain when it is handled quickly.
	The hon. Gentleman went on to raise the issue of rising fuel prices and fuel poverty. Let me remind him that this Government introduced the winter fuel allowance, which has now been increased to £300 for older pensioners. We are also spending record sums on Warm Front, the programme to insulate houses and improve heating, which gets to the fundamental issues that the hon. Gentleman was trying to raise.
	Finally, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, we are taking advice from Ofgem on the competition issues that the hon. Gentleman raised.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Helen Goodman: The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) went on to talk about the prayer laid by his colleague the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) against the immigration regulations. Obviously, colleagues at the Home Office are fully aware of that.
	The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine also requested, in essence, two topical debates; that is what I shall take his suggestion as.  [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman speaks from a sedentary position. The fact of the matter is that topical debates are in Government time. He asked for a debate on the Commonwealth and another on the Post Office restructuring programme, which is under way. I well know that that is a matter of concern across the House, particularly in relation to rural issues. The truth is that the Government have spent £2.2 billion on supporting the Post Office and will spend a further £1.7 billion, so Royal Mail should be able to manage a proper network within those resources.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, consultations are under way. I want to emphasise the fact that those consultations have a real impact on outcomes. For example, across the 11 areas for which final decisions have been announced, 23 closure decisions have been withdrawn. In addition, with 19 area plans so far published, an average of more than 10 per cent. of the initial proposals have been changed, so it is important that people take part in the consultations.

David Lepper: Further to the assurances that the Deputy Leader of the House has just given to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) on legislation to deal with violent internet pornography, she will be aware that the need for such legislation was highlighted by the brutal murder some five years ago of my constituent, Jane Longhurst, a respected teacher.
	Assurances have been given in the past by the Government. In addition to the reminders that the Deputy Leader of the House has undertaken to give to her colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, will she also remind them of the 50,000-signature petition on the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West and I presented to Parliament, and of the fact that the Dutch Parliament, as well as other European Parliaments, is carefully watching what happens in the House with a view to introducing legislation along similar lines?

Julie Morgan: I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that fair trade fortnight begins next Monday. Is she also aware that Cardiff became the world's first fair trade capital in 2004, and that it now contains more than 150 outlets—cafés, shops businesses and other organisations—that use and sell fair trade products? Does she not consider this important movement to be worthy of a debate?

George Young: The Deputy Leader of the House has just announced a further two weeks of unremitting European legislation. At the same time, important domestic Bills are stacked up awaiting Report. The Health and Social Care, Housing and Regeneration, Energy, Education and Skills and Planning Bills are all out of Committee. Can we not vary this rich European diet with some home-grown roughage?

Ann Cryer: My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) have touched on this matter, but may we have a debate on increases in the winter fuel payment, which are necessary as it is not keeping pace with the cost of keeping warm—I must declare an interest in that? May we look, too, at the massive increases in the profits of British Gas?

Helen Goodman: My hon. Friend makes a surprising revelation in her question on the winter fuel allowance. The Department for Work and Pensions keeps the level of benefits under constant review and, as she knows, Ofgem is looking at the competition in the energy market.

Hugh Robertson: Kent has several ports of entry, and in recent years it has taken delivery of a number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum. The cost of providing the support they need has now risen to just over £10 million, and Kent county council is having considerable trouble reclaiming that money from the Home Office and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Will the Deputy Leader of the House find time during Government time for a debate on this important subject?

John Bercow: May we have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House on the serial abuse of human rights in Burma and the continuing political crisis in that country? Given that only last week the vice-chairman of the Karen National Union, Padoh Mahn Sha, was assassinated at the instigation of the sadistic military dictatorship, would not such a debate allow us in detail to expose the systematic abuse of human rights, to highlight for the sham that it is the proposed political reform in that country and to chart the way to salvation with freedom, peace and justice for the long-suffering people of Burma?

Helen Goodman: The programme motion for the consideration of the Lisbon treaty, including the arrangements for the 11th day, was agreed several weeks ago. The hon. Gentleman may have noticed that contrary to what he is suggesting, fewer statements have been made on the days when the Lisbon treaty has been debated.

Peter Bone: I want to continue the discussion on the lack of available Committee time to consider the Lisbon treaty. I have had the pleasure of attending each Committee sitting. It has not been too tiring, because most sittings have lasted for only one and a half hours. Selected groups of amendments are clearly not being reached—we only ever debate the first group selected. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House is keen on protecting the rights of Back Benchers. One thing that would help the House would be if the arrangements for the six allotted hours were changed so that the vast bulk of the time is spent in Committee, rather than discussing a motion. The Government have agreed to be flexible on the matter. Will she examine it and publish the timetable for next week, setting out how the split between the motion and the Committee is to be delivered?

Jacqui Smith: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement. As the House will recall, in his statement on 4 February 2008, my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary announced that he and I had jointly agreed to ask the chief surveillance commissioner, Sir Christopher Rose, to conduct an inquiry to
	"investigate the circumstances relating to the visits to Babar Ahmad at HMP Woodhill by Sadiq Khan MP in May 2005 and June 2006, to establish whether the visits were subject to any form of surveillance and if so by whose authority and with whose knowledge, and to report his findings to the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and...the Justice Secretary."—[ Official Report, 4 February 2008; Vol. 471, c. 661.]
	Sir Christopher has completed his inquiry and submitted his report, and I should like to thank him for his work and for the speed and efficiency with which he carried it out. Today, I am laying his report before the House; copies are available in the Vote Office.
	There should be absolutely no doubt about the vital importance of covert surveillance techniques and the contribution they make to the protection of us all from terrorism and other serious crime. Covert surveillance is an essential tool for the police and security and intelligence agencies, and the ability to make use of it must be preserved. It is, however, right that its use is carefully regulated. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 mandates the form of authorisation and inspection for a range of investigatory powers, including two distinct types of surveillance: intrusive surveillance and directed surveillance.
	Intrusive surveillance is defined as the covert acquisition of information on a residential premise or in a private vehicle. It requires the authorisation of a Secretary of State, or of a chief constable or equivalent, together with the approval of a surveillance commissioner. Directed surveillance is any other covert surveillance that does not constitute intrusive surveillance. Directed surveillance can be approved by senior officers in the police, but does not require, in any circumstances, authorisation by a Secretary of State.
	The House will be aware that the 2000 Act also covers the interception of communications. That is a power that can only ever be used for limited purposes, and requires in each case the explicit prior authorisation of a Secretary of State. It is to interception, and to other surveillance requiring the approval of a Secretary of State, that the Wilson doctrine applies. Sir Christopher makes it clear that
	"the surveillance which I am investigating does not appear to me to be within the Wilson Doctrine, because it does not give rise to interception as defined by the legislation, nor would it require authorisation by the Secretary of State."
	This is in line with the Government's stated position on the doctrine. As the facts set out in Sir Christopher's report make clear, it is not relevant in this case.
	Let there be no doubt: all forms of covert surveillance are subject to a strict and rigorous statutory regime for authorisations; are conducted in accordance with the guidance set out in the statutory codes of practice; and are overseen by the various independent commissioners—normally recently retired members of the senior judiciary—established under the Act to ensure that those using the powers do so in compliance with the law and to the highest standards of integrity. There is an independent tribunal—the Investigatory Powers Tribunal—established to investigate and rule on any complaints.
	I turn now to the details of Sir Christopher's findings. As he reports, Babar Ahmad was arrested on an extradition warrant on 5 August 2004 and the following day remanded to HM Prison Woodhill. Sir Christopher found that warrants for intrusive surveillance for closed non-legal visits and for directed surveillance for open non-legal visits to Babar Ahmad were properly and correctly authorised in August and September 2004. The first intrusive surveillance authorisation was cancelled in December 2004. The second and relevant directed surveillance authorisation lasted until December 2006.
	Sir Christopher has studied all the documentation on this authorisation and its reviews and renewals. He says of this that
	"it suffices to say that the documentation shows that correct procedures were followed in accordance with the legislation and Codes of Practice were followed and proper considerations addressed."
	Sir Christopher records that my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting visited Babar Ahmad in prison on three occasions, in October 2004, in May 2005 and in June 2006. On the first occasion, before my hon. Friend was elected to this House, he visited as a solicitor, and Sir Christopher finds that his visit was not monitored in any way. My hon. Friend's later two visits were as an approved visitor under the approved visitors scheme for category A prisoners. He made an application to be put on that scheme as a friend, and before his election to this House. However, Sir Christopher notes that after his election,
	"he remained listed in the prison records as a friend."
	The two visits that occurred after my hon. Friend had become an MP were monitored by surveillance. It is absolutely clear from Sir Christopher's report that my hon. Friend was not the target of that surveillance.
	Sir Christopher finds that none of the senior officers responsible for authorising the surveillance knew at the time that the Sadiq Khan listed as a friend was a Member of Parliament. He finds that
	"the fact that he is a Member of Parliament first became known to"—
	those officers—
	"as a result of press reports since mid-December 2007."
	He concludes however that
	"two junior officers who applied for or reviewed authorisation and three who were directly involved in the monitoring knew that Mr Khan was a Member of Parliament, but they had no reason to regard this as significant."
	As I have just said, Sir Christopher concludes that the authorisations were in line with the legislation and codes of practice. In summary, Sir Christopher concludes:
	"The conversations between Mr Khan and Babar Ahmad on 21 May 2005 and 24 June 2006 were monitored. The monitoring was carried out lawfully under the legislation. It was properly authorised and fully documented."
	There have been some concerns raised about the extent of surveillance in prisons. Sir Christopher comments on these. He notes that
	"it is difficult and commonly impossible to prove a negative, but detailed enquiries on my behalf show no trace in recent years in prison records or anywhere else of any person known to be a Member of Parliament having been monitored during a prison visit."
	There have also been claims made about surveillance of legally privileged conversations between prisoners and solicitors. In his statement on 4 February, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice said in respect of conversations between prisoners and their legal advisers:
	"Those are all subject to explicit safeguards which generally prohibit such interception or surveillance".—[ Official Report, 4 February 2008; Vol. 471, c. 661.]
	The statutory codes of practice governing this it make clear that
	"In general, an application for surveillance which is likely to result in the acquisition of legally privileged information should only be made in exceptional and compelling circumstances."
	It is, though, important to note that the legislation does not absolutely forbid the monitoring of such conversations. Sir Christopher says on this point:
	"I understand from further enquiries which I have made that, since 2005 at least, there have been no authorities for directed surveillance of legal visits in prisons in England and Wales to prisoners in custody in relation to terrorist or other criminal matters."
	I have asked the police service about the matter, and have been assured that that is in fact the case. Sir Christopher goes on to say:
	"I know nothing to suggest that any unauthorised directed surveillance has taken place in relation to legal visits to such prisoners during the period to which my investigation relates."
	I hope that that deals clearly and fully with the concerns raised. If any hon. Member, or any member of the public, has a specific complaint to make, the proper thing to do is to refer it to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which this Government established for precisely that purpose.
	I referred earlier to the Wilson doctrine. Although that does not apply in this case, Sir Christopher does suggest that there is some scope for confusion as to the correct interrelationship between the Wilson doctrine and the legislation. The Government do not propose to amend the Wilson doctrine, but accept that current codes of practice do not fully clarify the extent to which reviewing officers and authorising officers should pay special attention to conversations involving or potentially involving a Member of Parliament. I am therefore announcing today that the Government will review the statutory codes of practice, and in particular that we intend to clarify that, as regards covert surveillance, conversations between Members of Parliament doing their constituency business and their constituents should be considered as "confidential information", and treated in the same way as other confidential information, such as conversations between a person and their lawyer or minister of religion. That will more clearly give such conversations additional protection.
	As regards this particular case, Sir Christopher has found that the procedures for surveillance operations of this kind were properly and lawfully applied and that my hon. Friend was not the target of surveillance. Sir Christopher identifies a need to clarify the position with respect to MPs as set out in the code and I agree. The action that I have announced today will ensure that that happens.

Jacqui Smith: In relation to the hon. Gentleman's penultimate point, it is precisely because I feel that the guidance, and in fact the statutory codes of practice, relating to RIPA should clarify the position with respect to those who review and monitor and authorise any conversations that might involve a constituency MP on constituency business that I have announced and propose today that we should amend the codes.
	On the hon. Gentleman's first point, about the Wilson doctrine, he referred to the view of the then interception of communications commissioner that there was potentially no longer a place for the doctrine. That point was fully responded to in a written ministerial statement on 30 March 2006 by the previous Prime Minister, who concluded at that time that the Wilson doctrine should be maintained. That position was subsequently confirmed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
	Sometimes, I feel we cannot win. I have read the transcript of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice, when Members urged speed on him, me and Sir Christopher Rose. Sir Christopher Rose carried out the inquiry speedily and effectively. In fact, he has slightly broadened the terms of reference in order precisely to take in the concerns about legal privilege that have been outlined and, as I have noted today, his report was clear. He said:
	"I know nothing to suggest that any unauthorised directed surveillance has taken place in relation to legal visits to such prisoners during the period to which my investigation relates.
	Paragraph 26 also states:
	"Although this is not within my Terms of Reference, I understand from further enquiries which I have made that, since 2005 at least, there have been no authorities for directed surveillance of legal visits in prisons in England and Wales to prisoners in custody in relation to terrorist or other criminal matters."
	I reiterate what I said in my statement: the Government set up the investigatory Powers Tribunal precisely to investigate concerns about the way investigatory powers were being used, and I recommend any Member or member of the public with concerns about the use of those powers to refer them to the tribunal.

William Hague: At the outset, may I say that by coming to the House to inform us of the new information quickly after it came to light, the Foreign Secretary has done the right thing, but he will recognise that the information will cause widespread concern, given the categoric nature of the assurances previously given by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), the then Foreign Secretary, and by the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair—assurances which we entirely accept were given in good faith, although they have turned out to be false.
	More worrying still, the new information means that very specific assurances about the use of the facilities at Diego Garcia, although given in good faith, have also turned out to be false. The Minister of State, Lord Malloch-Brown, stated in a written answer on 18 July last year:
	"The US authorities have repeatedly given us assurances that no terrorist suspects have been, or are being, held at Diego Garcia, or at any time have passed in transit through Diego Garcia or its territorial waters or airspace—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 18 July 2007; Vol. 694, c. WA25.]
	The information gives rise to a number of questions. Can the Foreign Secretary say more about how and why the information has suddenly come to light now? How confident is he that further such cases will not come to light? How exhaustive, so far as he knows, has the checking of records by the United States now been? Can he say any more about exactly how the omission—the omission both to ask for permission in the first place and to report afterwards—occurred and whether the United States has made any administrative changes to ensure that any other cases would now come to light?
	The Foreign Secretary said that he would compile a list of all previous flights that have alerted concerns and pursue them with the United States, an action of which we in the Opposition strongly approve, but will he impress on the United States Secretary of State the importance of ensuring that all agencies of the US Government understand the importance of the rules that he has reiterated relating to UK law and practice being respected? Can he also assure the House that if any further concerns about specific cases are raised, he will pursue them with the United States on a continuing and systematic basis, rather than as a one-off exercise?
	The delay in releasing the information and the evident absence of a request in these cases are bound to undermine public trust to some extent in the arrangements that we have with the United States. Is it not important to do everything possible to strengthen the credibility of our arrangements for the future? In particular, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether procedures for the future can be tightened up or reinforced in any way? Has he received any assurances of changes in internal procedures in the US Government so that the British Government can be confident that the American Administration would indeed make a formal request, when appropriate, for use of our airspace and facilities?
	More broadly, whatever the specifics of these cases, their revelation inevitably focuses attention again on the wider issue of how rendition is used. The efforts of the United States, our most important ally, to fight international terror are essential to the security not only of America, but of Britain and many other nations. But allegations that rendition has led to the torture of terrorist suspects has been used to undermine the moral standing of the US and its allies.
	If such torture has occurred, it is fundamentally wrong. The Government have taken the view, which we share, that rendition leading to torture is unacceptable, and that they would not approve any instance of rendition that breaches our obligation under the UN convention against torture. Would not the position of the United States and all its allies be strengthened if it, the United States, were to adopt a definition of torture that corresponds more closely to international norms, and if it adopted a higher threshold for rendition to third countries than satisfying itself that it "believes" that the transferred suspect will not be tortured? Is this not something that the Government should now advocate as America's candid friend?
	Such differences of practice and definition are at the root of international concern. Would not their satisfactory resolution mean that rather than permanent suspicion and occasional revelations, real trust might be restored for the future?

David Miliband: I quite understand why the right hon. Gentleman has spoken of widespread concern. That was reflected in my statement.
	The review that was undertaken by the United States authorities reflects the significant concerns that have been expressed by the Government in the House and more widely in this country. It is a reflection of those concerns that the review took place and brought the case to light. Obviously, the checking of the records in 2002-03 and beyond did not reveal the case. I referred to an administrative error in the work that went into those earlier reviews and I do not have further information about the nature of that error.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked about follow-up and how the United States authorities would take matters forward. I discussed with Condoleezza Rice yesterday the importance of the issue and how we follow it through. The right hon. Gentleman's remarks at the end of his response about the importance of confidence existing in the relationship and the nature of the assurances that we give to each other is critical to both the United States and the UK. The work that our officials will be doing with the US officials, which I referred to in my statement, is intended precisely to follow through on those concerns, but I wanted to make a statement to the House even though the officials have not yet had the chance to go to the United States to take forward those talks.
	The right hon. Gentleman drew a distinction between the one-off trawl that we will do for the existing cases of particular flights about which concerns have been expressed and which will be raised with the US authorities, and what he called the continuing and systematic work to ensure that the procedures that have been established are upheld. Of course we will look seriously at any serious concerns that are raised with us, and I am sure the United States will want us to do the same as well.
	In respect of the public trust that he spoke about, the right hon. Gentleman will know from the earlier correspondence to which I referred that the practice was established in the 1990s for permission to be sought, and in 1998 it was sought in four cases, in two of which rendition occurred and in two of which it did not. There was also a preliminary inquiry, which was referred to in the letter that was sent to him on 6 February 2006 about the 2004 case. I associate myself entirely with his view that rendition to torture would be quite wrong and is something that the UK Government should never participate in and certainly not instigate.
	I can tell the House that in this case we have been told that the two individuals involved were not taken to a secret detention facility or subject to water-boarding or other similar forms of interrogation. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the importance of advocating an international standard of definition, and that is what we do through our signature of international conventions on torture and through our adherence to our definition of it. We will certainly continue to do that.

Mike Gapes: I welcome the Foreign Secretary's statement. However, as the Foreign Affairs Committee has been pressing his two predecessors on these matters for several years, I feel that I must place on the record the fact that when, on 29 April 2007, we published our human rights annual report, in which we raised continuing concerns about this matter, we received the following Government response:
	"We are clear that the US would not render anyone through UK airspace (including the Overseas Territories) without our permission."
	That statement was clearly inaccurate. In the current situation, and on the basis of the information that we now know, will the Foreign Secretary formally today withdraw that statement? I hope that we as a House will make clear that the fact that the United States Bush Administration have clearly misled or lied to our Government has resulted in our Government inadvertently misleading a Select Committee of this House and Members of this House. The United States Administration have to bear in mind that that is a most serious matter and that we do not wish to see it repeated.

David Miliband: First, I want to reiterate something that I think was clear in my statement, but with which I am happy to associate myself again. The questions asked by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and the all-party parliamentary group are precisely the sort of parliamentary interrogation and questioning that is wholly appropriate. It was as a result, in part, of those questions that such extensive trawling was done in 2005 and 2006 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw).
	A very full inquiry was done into rendition by the ISC; the hon. Gentleman cited it himself. I believe that it went into the issues in great detail. The hon. Gentleman asked particularly about the territorial waters around Diego Garcia and I can confirm that they are part of the discussions that happen in the annual talks with the United States about Diego Garcia, and that the commitments that it has made include them.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether we would publish a list of the cases that we forward to the United States. I am happy to do that. The cases will have been put into the public domain in a range of places anyway by some of the organisations, including Amnesty International, that he mentioned. However, at the appropriate time I will be happy to find a way to put them into the public domain in a way that ensures that they are accessible—not least because that will prevent people from writing to ask us to investigate cases that are already being investigated. In respect of extraordinary rendition, I do not think that I could have been clearer in my statement. I said that the UK will in no way contribute to, instigate or condone the process of extraordinary rendition or rendition to torture of any kind.
	I turn to my final point. The hon. Gentleman talked about our friends in the United States, but I was sorry that he also said that it was hard to believe that there had not been other cases. I say to him in all candour that if he likes, he can run a foreign policy on the basis that it is hard to believe the commitments of our most serious and long-standing ally. However, I do not believe that that is the right basis on which to run a foreign policy. Of course we should ask questions of our most trusted ally; of course it should engage with us and have clear procedures. However, I do not think that we can conduct a foreign policy on the basis of disbelief or of a presumption of deceit, which I think lay behind some of what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope that he will recognise that a presumption of deceit is not an adequate basis on which to conduct our relations.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to his own constituent and I understand the work that he has rightly done on that case as a constituency MP. However, having looked at the issue this morning, the hon. Gentleman will, I think, agree with me that the ISC went through it in some detail and found no evidence that the UK had been complicit in the rendition to Guantanamo Bay.

Julian Lewis: Whilst it is clear that this revelation has been volunteered by the Americans, and that presumably the Foreign Secretary would not be making this statement if they had not come forward in an honest way, will he take the opportunity of reminding our American allies of Britain's long record of not using torture in interrogations, even when the very survival of our country was at stake, as in the second world war? Will he remind them that Sir Robert Thompson, the leading counterinsurgency specialist, wrote:
	"There is a very strong temptation...for government forces to act outside the law...Not only is this morally wrong, but, over a period, it will create more practical difficulties for a government than it solves."
	This would not be such an issue if it abandoned such practice.

David Miliband: As the hon. Lady knows, I genuinely respect the way in which she and the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) have taken up the cause of their constituents. We have talked about the application that has now been made, in respect of British residence, to bring them back from Guantanamo Bay. I genuinely understand that. But when she talks about British involvement, it is important that we understand that this is a matter of the United States seeking our permission, and there is no evidence of them having done so, other than in these two cases. Actually, they did not seek our permission in these two cases.
	I hope that the hon. Lady will understand that the inquiry she is calling for into British involvement is one that, by definition, is trying to prove a negative, which is a very difficult thing to do. The ISC inquiry was well founded, serious and did get through all the issues. It will be for the ISC and its Chairman—some of the ISC members are here—to decide whether they want to follow that up, and how they may want to do so. I have confidence in that inquiry and I have heard nothing to suggest that anyone should not have confidence in it.

Tony McNulty: I beg to move,
	That the draft Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005 (Continuance in force of sections 1 to 9) Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.
	The purpose of the order is to renew the control order elements of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, which automatically lapses after one year unless renewed by order subject to affirmative resolution in both Houses. The effect of the order is to maintain the powers set out under the Act until the end of 10 March 2009. That will allow us to continue to use control orders to tackle the threat posed to national security by suspected terrorists whom we can neither prosecute nor deport.
	I am conscious of the limited time, and I will try to be as quick as I can, but it is important to put the threat that we face in context. As hon. Members know, in the past few years, we have witnessed several appalling attacks on our country. As the director-general of the Security Service stated in November last year:
	"The number of people...involved in terrorist-related activity in the UK has increased to at least 2,000. And we suspect that there are as many again that we don't yet know of."
	The threat is clearly genuine, serious and unparalleled in our country's history. It is unparalleled because of the suicide dimension, which is new.
	Faced with a threat of that magnitude, it would be irresponsible to say that there was a simple solution. We need a range of responses to reduce the risk of further terrorist attacks. The order should be viewed in that context.
	I freely admit that the balance between human rights and security is paramount and that no party in the House has the monopoly on supporting security or human rights. All hon. Members accept that we all seek that balance. We must ensure that we protect all our fundamental values and civil liberties while defending the most of important—the right to life.
	Let me make it clear that prosecution is—first, second and third—the Government's preferred approach when dealing with suspected terrorists. Somehow in the past, a view has been put abroad that we cannot be bothered to prosecute so we invented control orders to avoid that route. In 2007 alone, 37 people were convicted of terrorism-related offences in 15 cases.
	However, we are constantly seeking to improve our ability to prosecute suspected terrorists. First, as hon. Members know, we introduced new offences in the Terrorism Act 2006, which have already been used successfully to prosecute those involved in terrorism. Secondly, we propose measures in the Counter-Terrorism Bill to extend post-charge questioning of suspected terrorists. Thirdly, we have accepted the Chilcot recommendation that we should introduce intercept as evidence, provided that the conditions outlined can be met. However, as the Chilcot report states:
	"We have not seen any evidence that the introduction of intercept as evidence would enable prosecutions in cases currently dealt with through control orders."
	Two other proposals made in last year's renewal debates—about the use of the threshold test and turning Queen's evidence—are already in place.

Evan Harris: The Minister knows that the terms of reference of control order review groups require them to keep the prospect of prosecution under review, including for breach of the order. Will he answer a more specific question, which was raised in a letter from the Joint Committee of Human Rights? At control order review groups—CORGs—meetings, does the Home Office inquire whether there is active investigation of the individual by the law enforcement agencies with a view to prosecution, rather than asking the vaguer question of whether there is scope for prosecution?

Tony McNulty: I dispute the hon. Gentleman's tail-end point, but this is most profoundly not the occasion on which to have that wider debate. I said—if I may be rather modest and generous to myself—that I thought that the suggestion that we should have that broad debate about the Government's wider strategy, of which the order is but a very small part, is one that I would certainly take up with the relevant business channels. The hon. Gentleman knows that we are constantly discussing such matters in one form or other— [ Interruption. ] No, here, too. However, a broad debate about all aspects of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy, not least the preventive dimension, is one that we should have, with time set aside, and I shall take that suggestion back. I agree with the hon. Gentleman's introductory point in part, which is why I have tried to reiterate what I think everyone in the House knows anyway, which is the serious nature of the threat. However, in respect of his broad comments about how we should have that wider debate with regularity, I am happy that that should be the case.
	Notwithstanding my brief introduction to the nature of the threat and some of the other things that we are doing, I need to continue. Control orders remain an important part of what we seek to do in that broad strategy. Notwithstanding all the improvements that I have outlined—in terms of legislation, how we do what we do and what the Chilcot implementation group might come up with—as Lord Chilcot has said, we believe that there remains a small number of suspected terrorist whom, for now, we can neither prosecute nor deport. Control orders remain the best available means of dealing with such individuals, but absolutely not the most satisfactory way, as I and many members of the Government have said in the past.
	In the past three years, control orders have been an important part of the fight against terrorism. Through a tailored set of obligations, they have helped to prevent individuals from engaging in terrorism-related activities, as well as restricting and disrupting them. Control orders are not imposed arbitrarily, which is a view that is sometimes abroad. A judge must agree that a control order is necessary and proportionate, and they are subject to regular and rigorous control. There are currently 14 control orders in force, and only 31 individuals have ever been subject to one over those three years.
	We think that control orders are an important tool and they continue to enjoy support from outside the Government. First, in the landmark House of Lords judgment in October 2007, the Lords crucially upheld the control order system, although not in all terms, so we were disappointed that they did not agree with the Government on every issue. On article 5 of the European convention on human rights—the right to liberty—the Lords judged that no control order then in effect needed to be weakened. Indeed, the judgment put the Government in a stronger position than before, as the Lords effectively indicated that a 16-hour curfew would not breach article 5.
	On article 6—the right to a fair trial—the judgment was complex and has therefore been widely misreported. The Lords did not say that any case before them had breached the right to a fair trial; rather, they said that in some, possibly exceptional cases, the current provisions in the 2005 Act might breach article 6. The Lords therefore read down the Act, to ensure that the procedure adopted under it would be compatible with article 6 in every case and concluded that the High Court should consider the point case by case. That forms part of the mandatory review of each individual control order by the High Court, which is one of the many safeguards in place to secure the rights of the individual. Therefore, we remain firmly of the view that the legislation and the order before us are fully compliant with the ECHR.
	Secondly, the independent reviewer of the operation of the 2005 Act, the noble Lord Carlile, continues to view control orders as necessary. He said that
	"as a last resort (only), the control order system as operated currently in its non-derogating form is a justifiable and proportional safety valve for the proper protection of civil society".
	The other two statutory consultees—the intelligence services commissioner and the director general of the Security Service—share that view. I should like to place on record the Government's thanks to Lord Carlile for another thorough report, which I am sure will add a great deal to today's debate. We will, of course, reply in due course.

Tony McNulty: Probably not, because I am mindful that others want to speak, but if I have time towards the end of my speech I shall do so.
	Of course, control orders are not perfect. However, we have worked hard over the past year to improve them.  [ Interruption. ] It is not in my nature to refuse people, but as the hon. Gentleman is on his toes, I will let him intervene.

Tony McNulty: I would hope so. I certainly cannot give that undertaking, other to say that I will try my best. To be entirely fair to Lord Carlile, the delay last year, such as it was, was entirely the Government's fault, as I said at the time, and not his. To be perfectly fair, this time round we got the report on the Sunday or Monday of the half-term week and published it at the very first opportunity, on the Monday just gone. I understand the point about that being less than satisfactory, in respect of this debate three days later, except that the report is effectively the fourth quarterly report, which sums the other three up, too, so that people should at least be clear about the background numbers and actions taken under the Act. But I take the hon. Gentleman's point that a bit more time would have been useful for everyone concerned.
	The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has referred to some of the criticisms of the orders. I accept that they are not perfect, but I think it is fair to say that we have worked hard over the past year to improve them. For instance, last year there was much talk of exit strategies for those on control orders. I am unconvinced by the idea that there should be an arbitrary end date for individual control orders, in part because each order addresses an individual risk, but I am firmly of the view that control orders should be imposed for as short a time as possible, commensurate with the risk posed.
	Consideration of appropriate exit strategies is an integral part of the formal quarterly review for every control order. An order can be renewed only if it is necessary to do so. Indeed, over the last year we have seen two control orders revoked and another two orders not renewed. In fact, the control orders of 17 of the 31 individuals who have been subject to an order are no longer in force. So I do not entirely agree with Lord Carlile about a two-year limit, although I agree that, if we can put more rigorous review mechanisms in place as a control order remains in place for longer, we should do so. As I have said, however, we should start from the premise that they should be imposed for as short a time as possible, bearing in mind the degree of risk involved.
	As I mentioned last year, we take very seriously the prospect of prosecuting individuals subject to control orders. These matters are considered on an ongoing basis and reviewed formally each quarter. Over the past year, we have put new procedures in place, and the police and CPS provide more detail on the prospects for prosecution to the court.
	As well as greater use of exit strategies, Lord Carlile also notes the difficulties in enforcing so-called light touch control orders. I agree that this is problematic but I am not convinced by his suggested alternatives. Over the past year, we have reviewed all current control orders, and the monitoring procedures to which they are subject, in order to ensure that they are as effective as possible. In a number of cases, where it was necessary and proportionate to do so, the control orders were strengthened. That does not mean that my mind is closed to the notion of dealing differently with the so-called light touch end of the control order regime. I just mean that I am not entirely sure that the antisocial behaviour order and other routes suggested by Lord Carlile are appropriate.
	We have also been working on legislative improvements to control orders. The Counter-Terrorism Bill, which was introduced on 24 January, includes measures to improve the policing of control orders. The Bill will also give hon. Members a further opportunity to debate the control order system more generally, including points raised in the JCHR report published yesterday. I look forward to seeing those suggested amendments.
	In summary, we are confronted by a threat from terrorism which is determined, indiscriminate and brutal. We must protect the public while ensuring that our fundamental rights and values are protected, and we must do that overwhelmingly within the body of the rule of law, our statutes and the terrorism legislation framework. There are and will be very small matters of exception in that regard, of which control orders are a part. I say freely that they are part of the delicate balancing act between security and human rights. They are also a significant part of the Government's, um, ability to protect the public from the risk of terrorism. I hesitated because my speaking notes use the word "toolkit", which is a rather pathetic word in this regard. It belongs in the dustbin, along with "roll-out", "stakeholder" and all those sorts of things.
	In all seriousness, not renewing the 2005 Act would increase the risk to the public. That is a prospect that we cannot allow. I take on board many of the issues that hon. Members, Lord Carlile and the Joint Committee have raised in order to try to improve the system, but, as Sir John Chilcot has said, the system needs to remain in order to fill a vital gap in regard to risk. I commend the order to the House.

Dominic Grieve: The Minister delivered one of his characteristic speeches. He tends to look at the general rather than condescend to the particular. This is an important issue. When my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who is in the Chamber today, opened the debate for the Opposition last year, he said, with good reason, that he thought it most unlikely that we would be able to support the renewal of the control order arrangements again.
	The background history to this matter is, in a sense, engraved on my heart, given that it started with a marathon 36-hour sitting of the House in 2005. It is significant that much of what was proposed by the Government in an effort to reach a compromise at the end of the stand-off between the House of Commons and the House of Lords has not really occurred. At the time, it was intimated in debate that these powers were required to deal with several hundred people. That is what the then Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, said; it was one of the strongest arguments advanced. We now know, however, that a maximum of 31 individuals have been dealt with under this procedure.
	Furthermore, the stand-off was ended when the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke), told the House that he was working on the basis that there would be an early opportunity for an entire review of the architecture of the anti-terrorism laws, which would allow the issue of control orders to be looked at afresh. Indeed, he put forward a timetable that envisaged that, during 2006, we would have a new anti-terrorism Act, that we would be able to consider it with great care, and that there would be an opportunity during its passage for us to conduct a complete overview of the existing anti-terrorism legislation and to consider carefully reports such as that produced by Lord Carlile in early 2006, when the first renewal of control orders would come before the House.
	In fact, that did not happen. In fairness to the Government, it did not happen because the July 2005 bombings led to the next anti-terrorism measure being introduced earlier than the Government expected. In fact, it was passed, after ping-pong with the House of Lords, on the very day that the first renewal came up, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newark will remember. Far from that legislation providing us with an opportunity to take an overall view of anti-terrorism measures in the round, it was so narrowly crafted—and, most regrettably, sufficiently harshly guillotined as to prevent adequate scrutiny, as is characteristic of the way we legislate in this place today—that no such opportunity existed to examine, by amendment in Committee, how the existing anti-terrorism powers might need to be reviewed or got rid of. Instead, our deliberations were dominated by such issues as glorification and the proposal for a 90-day pre-charge detention period.
	For that reason, when this matter came up for review on its first review date, we did not oppose it. We looked at Lord Carlile's report. It is noteworthy that, with each of his reports on the operation of control orders, he has become more lukewarm. He has also become more anxious about the impact that they will have by lasting a longer time, and about the fact that, in many cases, it is difficult to see how they provide adequate protection for the public, given that it appears relatively easy to abscond or to breach their terms. He also highlights the fact that they have—mercifully, perhaps—only been applied to a very limited number of people.
	Currently, as the Minister highlighted, only 15 control orders are in force. Although I do not think that there has been any dispute of the view that several hundred people—it might possibly run into several thousand—in this country may pose a threat, 15 is a very small number. Because we are concerned with only 15 people, it raises the question, which the Minister has to answer, of whether we could do without this mechanism at all, particularly when the Minister has acknowledged that in its impact on civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law, it is an undesirable mechanism of last resort and not one that any Government would wish to see on the statute book for a day longer than is necessary.
	It is worth looking at Lord Carlile's comments. The Minister was rather dismissive of the suggestion of replacing light touch control orders with antisocial behaviour orders. When I read that, my eyes started out of my own head, because my personal view of ASBOs, in terms of being an effective mechanism for controlling people's behaviour, is not very high. However, if someone with the authority of Lord Carlile thinks that an ASBO would probably be as good as a light touch control order, it really highlights an issue that the Minister must deal with in his reply, because on the face of it, the light touch control order clearly appears to Lord Carlile to be of very little benefit indeed.
	Lord Carlile also highlighted the extent to which the implementation of control orders will require considerable human resources for surveillance. One issue that clearly arises is the extent to which that surveillance is available. The number of cases of absconding suggests that the surveillance supplied may be relatively limited. Of course, one could reverse the argument and say that if large levels of surveillance are already available, we might not need a control order in the first place—one of the arguments raised when we first discussed this issue some three years ago.
	Another matter that troubles me is the length of time for which these orders have lasted. We know that seven individuals have been subject to control orders for more than two years and there is plainly great anxiety on Lord Carlile's part about the propriety of such lengthy infringements of liberty. It is important to note that he thinks that the likely value of an individual to terrorists after a prolonged period of being subject to a control order is, in reality, going to be very slight. That being the case, finding some way of dispensing with control orders is clearly going to be very desirable.
	What troubles me—and it may trouble the House—is the question of what practical steps the Government are going to take over the next 12 months before we come back for the next renewal to see whether we can, in fact, get rid of control orders for good. That is the challenge that the Minister has to answer. It is a challenge that I have also had to consider as Opposition spokesman deciding whether to support the renewals or to seek to oppose them. On balance, and with a considerable degree of reluctance, our conclusion is that we should allow renewal to take place this year. There is a very specific reason for that, which I want to bring to the Minister's attention, and I shall seek some assurances that he will not only note it, but act on it.
	We know that a Counter-Terrorism Bill has been published and it is believed that it is likely to secure its Second Reading before the Easter break. That provides an opportunity, if the Government wish to provide it, for an overall review of counter-terrorism legislation. I have to say that I am rather cynical and not very confident that that is what will happen. The history of such legislation suggests that we often tend to get bogged down in confrontation—and there may well be serious confrontation over the plan to extend pre-charge detention to 42 days—and that the way in which such Bills are considered in Committee and, indeed, on Report makes it virtually impossible to table Opposition amendments to probe and review the current operation of existing terrorism legislation, which would allow us to have precisely the sort of debate that the Minister suggested earlier would be so desirable in order to examine things with a broader perspective rather than focus on the narrow issue of renewal.
	If the Minister and the Government are prepared to rise to the occasion, I like to think that we could use the Counter-Terrorism Bill and the opportunity for debate surrounding it to have some sensible discussions that could lead to the Government having sufficient confidence to decide that this order will not require renewal at all next year. It is only on those grounds that we have decided not to vote against the renewal motion this afternoon. I have to tell the Minister, however, that the longer this process goes on and the longer control orders remain in place on individuals, the more difficult the renewal process will become. If we come back next year and find that seven individuals will have been subject to control orders for more than three years, the Government's position will start to become even more difficult.
	I acknowledge, as we acknowledged at the outset, that there might be circumstances in which control orders are necessary. That is why, when we first debated the matter three years ago, we accepted the principle. Our argument was over the question of having a sunset clause. We wanted such a clause, which is different from an annual renewal, in order to ensure that, at some point in a reasonable time frame, this matter could come to the crunch and the Government would have to justify their position by primary legislation and a full Bill rather than by a mere one and a half hour debate. We were right in that, and everything that has happened since makes me think that our position was reasonable, moderate and correct. Now, however, the question is whether the Government will take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Counter-Terrorism Bill. I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance this afternoon that he has taken our points seriously into account.

Tom Brake: I echo the hon. Gentleman's point about expectations of how the Counter-Terrorism Bill might assist by making it likely that the need for control orders diminishes or goes away entirely. However, I must remind the hon. Gentleman of what he said about how he thinks the Government will deal with the Counter-Terrorism Bill: he said that he was cynical, and not confident that they will address it in the way he hopes.
	There has been little progress on the four points my right hon. Friend raised 12 months ago. Members have rightly drawn attention to the time limits issue. The Minister quoted Lord Carlile's report, and he will therefore be familiar with the points Lord Carlile made about what he describes as the "endgame" in relation to control orders. He said:
	"I remain concerned about the ending, or endgame, of each control order",
	and he also stated that they
	"cannot be continued indefinitely".
	He also said that, 12 months ago,
	"I advised that, as a matter of urgency, a strategy is needed for the ending of the orders in relation to each controlee",
	and
	"it is only in rare cases that control orders can be justified for more than two years."
	He also advises—the Minister has responded to this—
	"that there should be a recognised and possibly statutory presumption against a control order being extended beyond two years".
	The Minister has made it clear that he does not support Lord Carlile's view. However, I hope he will at least agree that his position is worthy of debate, and possibly of a vote in this place at some point in the near future.
	While we are on the subject of time limits, it might be useful to mention that there is a need for a time restriction on the curfew of 12 hours, following the House of Lords judgment that an 18-hour detention period is unacceptable. The Joint Committee on Human Rights requested that restriction. I hope the Minister will make clear his position on that issue and whether the Government have a view on what an appropriate detention or curfew period might be.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam also raised concerns about the review process 12 months ago. We welcome the creation of the control orders review group and how it is operating.

Tom Brake: I can only echo my hon. Friend's concerns.
	I was discussing control orders being subject to regular and thorough review. I appreciate the work that the control orders review group is doing, but hon. Members have referred to the issue of how Lord Carlile's review of control orders is conducted. More specifically, we need to consider the time scale for conducting it, passing it on to Government and publishing it. The Minister rightly put on the record what happened in a previous year and what happened this year. He acknowledged—hon. Members and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have also flagged this up—that we could do better on the length of time the report is available for hon. Members and the Committee to consider.
	The Minister put his case in a measured manner, acknowledging that control orders are not perfect. I regret that little new has been said this year. Our concerns have not been addressed this year, so to be consistent with the position we adopted last year we intend to divide the House on this issue again this year.

Tobias Ellwood: I apologise to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn). He speaks passionately about these issues, and I think that my frustration is shared throughout the House that one and a half hours is not enough time to debate them. The Minister has acknowledged that, and I appreciate his suggestion—I hope that the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham), is listening—that we might have an opportunity to discuss the wider picture and the impact that the order will have as one part of the jigsaw of tackling terrorism in the United Kingdom.
	The Minister also said that prosecution was the Government's first, second and third priority. Leading on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said about rehabilitation, I just came back from Saudi Arabia, where 300 to 400 detainees are being put through a rehabilitation programme, with huge success. When the Minister sums up, will he comment on that? Perhaps we are not doing enough to get into the mindset of such individuals and prevent home-grown British Muslims from putting on the suicide jacket. I was shocked to hear that Guantanamo Bay has no such programme, and goodness knows how long the people there have been held. The Saudi programme was incredible. It brought in imams and people familiar with lecturing and teaching not only in Saudi Arabia but throughout the middle east to make the terrorists understand that their version and understanding of the Koran was simply out of context and wrong.

Patrick Mercer: Will the Minister iterate his desire for us to have a wider-ranging debate on Government counter-terrorist strategy?

Mike O'Brien: I will give way in a moment.
	We are working jointly with Help the Aged, Age Concern, Citizens Advice and other partners to get this message across: "If you are entitled, this money is rightfully yours and we're here to help you get it." We will target the areas where take-up is low, using intermediaries and local channels and joining up with other organisations to creating innovative communications strategies. For example, we are working with the Scottish Executive to extend pilots that will test methods for increasing take-up. In Birmingham, we will send out more than 500,000 targeted mailings and advertise through local radio, GPs' surgeries, libraries and post offices. I will be writing to all Members of Parliament shortly to outline our plans and show how hon. Members can help. This will make pension credit even more accessible and get money to those who are most in need.

Mike O'Brien: A few more checks are made, rather than just a telephone call. These days, we do not have to rely on a telephone call to make checks on people. We want to ensure that people are able to provide us with information about their income and what their other sources of income are. Today, most pensioners rely not just on the basic state pension plus pension credit, but on a number of other sources, such as savings or a second pension, which many people have.
	We must take it into account—this is a major part of the work done by the Pension Service—that checks must be carried out on the financial circumstances of individuals. When dealing with millions of people, there are always a few who try to milk the system and defraud it, so it is important that we put in place the appropriate checks. That is what we have done. Indeed, it has been done particularly successfully in recent years as we have targeted those who might seek to defraud the system. What we are doing will build on the hard work of the Pension Service.

Mike O'Brien: We are sending mailshots to about half a million people in Birmingham in an attempt to persuade them to take up their entitlements. However, we have experienced problems with the take-up of, in particular, pension credit, although we have written to some of those who we think should be taking it up. Our information, limited as it is, suggests that people living in certain areas may well be on low incomes, but although we have sent them up to four mailshots a year, we are not achieving the take-up we would like, for the reasons that I gave earlier.
	The hon. Gentleman suggests by means of signals that telephone calls might be appropriate. We rely on pensioners' telephoning the hotline. Our objective is not to start making what would amount to unsolicited calls to pensioners, and I would be rather cautious about introducing such a procedure.
	In 2007-08, to date, there have been over 200,000 successful new applications for Pension Credit, and we are on track to surpass the target of 235,000 for the year. This year 680,000 home visits to hard-to-reach customers have been conducted through partner organisations, offering pensioners an holistic service that takes account of all their needs, including benefit eligibility. I am confident that our record in combating pensioner poverty is good, and that the measures I have announced will help thousands more pensioners to move out of poverty.
	We will also uprate benefits and allowances for the working-age population. The order provides for an extra £630 million for disabled people and carers, and an extra £420 million for those of working age. Child-related allowances paid in the income-related benefits will be increased in parallel with child tax credits. That is intended to ensure that families entitled to such benefits see the full value of increases in the tax credits. Next April, the allowance paid for a child who is dependent on the income-related benefits will increase by £5.14 a week to £52.59, a rise of almost 11 per cent. That shows our commitment to providing financial support for families on low and moderate incomes. Tax credits currently benefit nearly 6 million families and 10 million children.
	As in previous years, the uprating provides an opportunity for us to deal with anomalies and make the system simpler. From next April, the single-person rate for income support and jobseeker's allowance will be the same for all 16 to 24-year-olds. For the relatively small number of 16 and 17-year-olds who claim, that amounts to an increase of £12.30, raising their weekly benefit from £35.65 to £47.95. The change will give extra help to a small number of vulnerable teenagers, as well as simplifying the benefit structure.
	This year's uprating strengthens our pledge for an active welfare state that gives people an opportunity to return to the labour market and contribute to our society, and provides the security of an essential safety net for those who fall on hard times; but we can never be complacent. Our welfare state must continue to foster independence by giving people the support that they need, not so that they can become dependent but precisely so that they do not. Our goal is a welfare state that gives a hand up rather than a handout, and a way out of worklessness, not worklessness as a way of life. Our goals are ambitious—we want to remove 1 million people from incapacity benefit, and to enable 300,000 more single parents and 1 million more older people to work—but we are building on a platform of strength and stability. We can talk with real confidence about what has been achieved in the last 10 years: more jobs, more skills, more opportunity and less poverty. Since 1997, we have had the longest period of sustained growth in a generation. The number of people in work is at a record level: 29.4 million. Since 1997, the number of people on benefits has fallen by 1 million. The new deal has helped more than 1.7 million people into work.

James Clappison: Conservative Members welcome the opportunity to debate a subject of great importance to many of our constituents. We share many of the Minister's general objectives, although we perhaps do not entirely agree with his narrative?

James Clappison: I shall give way in a moment.
	My next line was going to be the answer to a question put in an earlier intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke). That answer being that Britain has the highest proportion of children in workless families of anywhere in Europe. If either the hon. Member for Swindon or the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) wants to deny that, I give them the chance to do so.

James Clappison: Council tax benefit is a salient point in relation to the order. I have to tell the hon. Member for South Swindon (Anne Snelgrove) that many pensioners are recognising the shortfall in their finances given what they have to pay for fuel and food, as well as the high council tax increases they will have to pay. The situation is difficult for many pensioners and I think she will find that few of them regard their finances with the same degree of satisfaction as Labour Members— [ Interruption. ]

Mike O'Brien: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the pension credit. If he listened to my earlier speech, as I am sure he did, he will know that I have just announced that we are working with Help the Aged and Age Concern to increase the take-up of pension credit. In December, we announced proposals that will lift about 50,000 more pensioners out of poverty and get them registered for pension credit as well as for a series of other benefits.

James Clappison: Well, the serious problem is that there are 330,000 pensioners who do not have it today, and that is what we should be debating.
	I noticed the words that the Minister used in his opening remarks. He said that he wanted to see more people claim pension credit, and that the Government "seek to increase pension credit take-up". The fact is that the Government have missed their target of paying pension credit to 3 million households. They should have hit that target two years ago, but in 2005-06 some 2.65 million households were in receipt of the credit. It is against that background that we should view the statistic that today in Britain, notwithstanding the satisfaction that the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and his colleagues feel about the matter, 2 million pensioners live in poverty.
	The Conservatives join the Minister in the objective of improving the lives of those pensioners and getting through to them the entitlements that they should receive. The National Audit Office estimates that increasing the take-up of pension credit by 10 per cent. would lift an extra 100,000 pensioners out of poverty, while a similar increase in the rate of take-up of housing and council tax benefits would move 130,000 out of poverty. We share the general objective of moving those pensioners out of poverty—we want to see that happen—but the problem is that the Government's present measures, including the uprating order, will not make it happen.
	I remember the Government being warned when they introduced the pension credit that they were relying on a complex system. Indeed, at one point we were told that they seemed to be relying on the assumption that working people would not understand the system, as if they did, they would choose not to save. To be fair, the Minister acknowledged today as well as in his statement on 5 December some of the problems with pension credit take-up.
	As a general principle, we welcome any help that can be given to pensioners and others who struggle with the complexity of the system. Ministers have very fairly admitted, finally, that pensioners find the forms confusing, and the Government are trying to put in place a different system to help them. With that in mind, how does the Minister propose to monitor the effects of the changes that he described today and on previous occasions, particularly changes relating to the claiming of pension credit? What is his most recent estimate of take-up of pension credit, and what expectations do the Government have on that front? As a matter of interest, to put his good intentions to the test, what estimate of pension credit take-up has the Chancellor of the Exchequer used in his spending plans for the years to come? What is the Government's estimate of pension credit take-up for those purposes?

James Clappison: I think the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to recognise that I have given way quite a bit, including to him.
	I turn now to whether the operating changes relate to people and families living in poverty and severe poverty. According to a paper issued last year by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, relative poverty in the United Kingdom rose in 2005-06—an increase of 400,000 before housing costs and 600,000 after housing costs are taken into account.
	The institute says:
	"The rise in relative poverty is a direct consequence of the relatively low growth in low incomes between 2004-05 and 2005-06."
	Will the Minister give us his view on that and tell us where these benefit upratings fit into the general picture? There are important questions about not only relative poverty but severe poverty—that is, people living on 40 per cent. of contemporary median income. Again according to the IFS, the risk of severe poverty increased between the years 1996-97 and 2005-06. Will the Minister tell us where these benefit upratings fit into the picture, and is he prepared to give us any forecast on severe poverty?
	Strange as it may seem when one is talking about relative poverty and severe poverty, many of those in receipt of these benefit upratings will be subject to a fairly heavy burden of taxation—or what will be so for them. According to one survey, the poorest fifth of households pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than any other group. Obviously, quite a lot of that will be accounted for by indirect taxation, but can the Minister give us any idea of how many of those in receipt of these upratings are paying direct taxation—that is, income tax or national insurance contributions?
	The underlying aim must be, wherever possible, to move people from the benefits system into work and to reduce the number of people subject to the upratings in the order. Let us take one example. Certain parts of the order increase payments to those in receipt of long-term incapacity benefits. I have already given the House the statistics on long-term incapacity benefits, which are striking. More than 55 per cent. of incapacity benefit claimants have been in receipt of incapacity benefits for more than five years and, under this Government, those on incapacity benefit for more than two years are more likely to die or retire than to get a job. There are also, strangely, several hundred thousand people under the age of 35 claiming incapacity benefit—500,000 altogether, including some who are very young. Will the Minister share with us any views he has on the incidence of long-term incapacity benefit claimants and draw the connection between getting at least some of those people off incapacity benefit and reducing the annual expenditure on benefits?
	In considering by how much expenditure on uprating can be reduced in future, will the Minister take into account the evidence that many people in receipt of these benefits, including incapacity benefit and the benefits uprated under the order, want to work and are being let down by the system as currently constructed? In a written reply to me last July, the national statistician told me that more than 2 million of the economically inactive want a job. That figure must include many of those in receipt of the uprated benefits under the order. Taking into account all those on out-of-work benefits, we estimate that nearly 5 million people are on such benefits, including many subject to the order—such as 2.6 million people claiming incapacity benefit, which is being uprated, and 837,000 people on jobseeker's allowance, which is likewise being uprated. Against that rather dismal background, can the Minister give us a sense of where he sees expenditure on these benefits going in future? Does he expect as much to be spent on these benefits in years to come because of the sheer number of people claiming?
	I appreciate that the order is an annual exercise, but it is not a model of simplicity, and the explanatory memorandum is not exactly forthcoming. It tells us what is happening in a very broad sense but gives us little insight into the details in respect of individual benefits. For example, how easy is it for a pensioner to find out what effects article 6(10) has on his or her entitlements under the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 or the Pension Schemes Act 1993? In an attempt to scrutinise Government proposals such as this, the Social Security Advisory Committee asked the Minister's Department to provide what it called a complexity impact statement. It is salutary to read what the committee—the expert body charged with looking at the social security system and all such uprating orders—says in its most recent report.
	It says:
	"We noted in our last report that these statements had told us little about either how the Department's guidelines on simplification have been applied in each case or about the impact statements that have been made subsequently. We have found this lack of exposure of the process frustrating and on the basis of the limited information that has been offered to us, we have been unable to judge whether any substantial progress is being made".
	In short, these and other measures coming from the Department are too complicated for a complexity impact statement. If that is how the distinguished members of the Social Security Advisory Committee found things, what must they be like for the recipient who wants to find out more about their entitlements under orders such as this? To put it as the committee diplomatically did, there is a substantial barrier to full customer engagement. That is a good description of the way this Government so often operate.

Paul Flynn: There must be a better way of doing it. I will take part in the campaigns that the Minister will lead. We have the communications alliance now, which gives a chance to publicise the meetings and get pensioners along, but we must find a better way than the simple uprating campaigns that have been only partially successful in the past.
	This debate provides a chance to look at many of the defects in the system. We must consider the figures that are not uprated; this is a serious matter. We rightly concentrate on the benefits that will be increased, but some figures are not uprated annually at all. In particular, I refer to the capital limits for entitlement to means-tested benefit. The amount of capital that a pensioner can have without benefit entitlement being affected was fixed at £6,000 in 2001—a great deal more than it was in the past. Seven years later, it remains £6,000.
	A constituent of mine, Mr. Cliff Knight, who is a doughty campaigner for pensioners and is a local historian, is finding that the ageing process comes with many companions and that he needs many services that he never previously required. The example is interesting and I want to go into detail about it. He was refused a grant to buy a stair lift. The means test for disabled facilities grants is based on the housing benefit rules. Although the weekly needs of a disabled pensioner are assessed at £186.55 for housing benefit purposes, increasing to £194 this April, the figure for calculating entitlement for a disabled facilities grant is £171.40, which was the housing benefit rate for 2005-06. Surprisingly, that makes a huge difference. The failure to increase the sum since 2005-06 makes a difference of £8,812 in the amount of grant payable. That is staggering. It means that many people, who are entirely deserving of the grants, are floated off them by the failure to uprate the amount in line with inflation. We must examine that—a large cohort of pensioners has been badly dealt with because of that problem.
	There is plenty of good news from the Government. It has been gratifying to be a Labour Member in a successful period for pensions. Last year's Pensions Act embodied two fundamental and welcome changes to entitlement to the basic state pension. First, the earnings link, which was severed in 1980, is to be restored so pensions will increase, as they did before then, at least in line with the increase in average earnings.
	The second welcome change especially affects women. The number of years of contributions that is needed to qualify for the full rate of pension is currently 44 for men and 39 for women. That will now be reduced to 30 years for both sexes, thus putting right an old injustice.
	However, the order reflects neither benefit because the change in the contribution conditions will not come into force until April 2010 and the earnings link will not be restored until at least 2012 and possibly not until 2014. In both cases, the delay is hard to defend, especially given the surplus in the national insurance fund. If current trends continue, we will be in the extraordinary position whereby the surplus in the national insurance fund will be enough by 2013 to fund a Northern Rock rescue, should such a calamity recur.
	For many years, I used to get up early to table early-day motion 1, asking for the restoration of the earnings link. If we had restored it in 1997, it would have been affordable because the subsequent increases in inflation have been low. That should have happened—it would have been a great advantage to us.
	Breaking the earnings link had a dramatic effect on the basic pension. Most of the damage was done under the Tories. The basic pension fell from 23.7 per cent. of average earnings in 1981 to 17 per cent. in 1997. That is sad, bearing in mind my comments about the value of the basic pension as something to which people feel they are entitled and are proud to take. Take-up is virtually universal. Sadly, the process has continued, with a further drop under the present Government from 17 to about 15.4 per cent. The valued pension is therefore being reduced all the time, thus increasing the amount people have to claim.
	Single pensioners are now about £47 a week worse off than they would be if the link had never been broken. That is a large sum of money. Everyone— including all the Opposition parties, I believe—agrees that the link must now be restored. Do people understand what it means? Everyone, especially those on small incomes, fears that their income will not keep up with inflation. They are going to find themselves with a reducing power to spend. They want the link as it gives a great deal of security, and if it is not there they rightly object. The link is justified and will be hugely popular for the party that introduces it. However, pensioner organisations do not understand why they have to wait at least another four years until they have it. By 2012, the pension will be 14 per cent. of average earnings, and each year's delay beyond that date will reduce it still further.
	It is not just today's pensioners who will suffer from the delay; it will also mean a permanent reduction in the value of the pension as a proportion of average earnings for generations to come and a permanent increase in the proportion of pensioners forced to rely on means-tested benefit. At the very least, the Government should now give a definite commitment to restore the link by 2012, leaving open the possibility of earlier action.
	On contribution conditions, the second fundamental change embodied in the Pensions Act 2007 was the reduction in the number of years of contributions required for women eventually to qualify for a full or nearly full basic state pension. Those who stand to benefit most are those who, wisely or not, chose to pay the reduced married woman's contribution and those who paid full contributions when they could but had substantial gaps in their contribution records for the years when they were bringing up children or caring for disabled members of their family.
	However, until 1978 the years devoted to child care or other family responsibilities did not count towards the state pension. Barbara Castle introduced the home responsibility protection, or HRP, the effect of which was that those years were to be left out of the pension calculation. That meant that a woman with, say, a 10-year gap in her contributions record during which she was caring for children or a disabled relative could still qualify for a full pension—an act that we all accepted as absolutely right. However, HRP did not start until 1978 and did not apply retrospectively. There are therefore still a large number of women over pension age whose child-rearing years occurred at least in part before 1978 and who still receive reduced pensions as a result.
	To their credit, the Government have recognised that. The May 2006 pensions White Paper said:
	"Women's pension entitlements are, on average, catching up with men's. But there remains a critical cohort of women over the age of about 45 now who did not fully benefit from HRP. They have significantly poorer contribution records—despite the fact that most of them will have made important and valuable contributions to society."
	The admirable solution proposed in the White Paper and embodied in last year's Act was to reduce the number of contribution years needed for a full pension, but only for those reaching pension age in 2020 or later. However, most in the critical cohort referred to in the White Paper are already over pension age now. It is the older women who are worst affected, because more of their child-rearing days occurred before 1978, when HRP started.
	A woman now aged 80 would have been 50 in 1978, so would probably derive little or no benefit from HRP, and will almost certainly receive a reduced pension as a result, yet the new and more generous rules will not apply to her. Moreover, it is plainly unfair that a woman born on 5 April 1950, and now aged 57, should receive a much smaller pension in April 2010 than a woman with the same contribution record who was born a day later. However, that is the effect of the change in the contribution conditions as it stands now.
	As April 2010 approaches, people will become increasingly aware of the cliff edge that we will face at that time. It is difficult to believe that the Government will not be compelled by public opinion and the deep sense of injustice that will be felt to backdate the change, so that existing as well as future pensioners benefit from it. I urge the Minister and the Government to make a decision, rather than leaving it to the last moment, so that women already receiving reduced pensions can at least look forward to a better pension from 2010 onwards.
	The national insurance fund is a fascinating subject with which I have bombarded Pensions Ministers in a number of Governments for rather a long time.

Danny Alexander: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn), who made a number of important points. The process for debating benefit upratings simply does not allow us to have a proper discussion of the adequacy or otherwise of benefits, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It is important to improve parliamentary scrutiny so that we can properly address that issue, perhaps once every Parliament, and ensure that we do not lose sight of the genuine problems caused by the inadequacy of some of the benefits, as highlighted by the hon. Gentleman.
	Liberal Democrat Members welcome the uprating statement. As the Minister said, it is a matter of great importance to every constituency that an additional sum in excess of £4 billion will be put into the benefits system as a result of the uprating. However, in common with the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), as I listened to the Minister's opening remarks about the wider context, I felt that his analysis revealed a degree of complacency. The Minister was quite right to point to some improvements, but in view of the poverty statistics when the Conservatives left office and how bad the situation was then, we should regard some improvement as a bare minimum. Although there have been certain improvements, the situation is not as good as the Minister set out. In the interests of having an objective debate, it is also important to recognise where there is a desperate need for improvement. Nowhere is that more obvious than from a study of the poverty statistics, particularly those for child poverty, which is greatly affected by the benefits system.
	We talk a lot about child poverty and pensioner poverty, but we do not give much air time to poverty among people of working age, which is a serious problem. How adequate the relevant benefits are in relieving that poverty is a genuinely important issue. Similarly, the Minister cited, as Ministers often do, the improved statistics on the numbers of people in employment, but what he did not say is that even with those increases, it is still the case that today's employment rate is no higher than it was at the peak of last economic cycle in 1990. For all the improvements in employment levels highlighted by the Minister, and the consequent reduction in the number of people on benefit, there is a still a huge way to go if we are to meet the target of increasing the employment rate to 80 per cent., for example.
	The need to go further is particularly true in respect of some of the groups to which the uprating statement applies. I refer specifically to the number of people on incapacity benefit, which has remained stubbornly high—2.7 million when the Government came to office and about 2.6 million now. Despite that small drop in claimants, one of the greatest failures of welfare reform is the fact that we still have more than 2.5 million people in receipt of incapacity benefit despite all the evidence that a very large proportion of them would like to be able to work, if only the help and support were available to assist them in doing so. Likewise, the number of children living in workless households has remained stubbornly high—another matter to which I shall return.
	Let me make some general points about the uprating statement. The first issue that needs to be highlighted is the complexity of the benefit system. Complexity is often pinpointed as an issue in the abstract sense, but it is also a very real and direct issue because the system's complexities have a direct effect on people's ability to get back into work. People often cannot judge whether they will be better off in work, and in some cases they may well not be. In going through the detail of the uprating statement, as I am sure hon. Members have, we find that more than 400 different rates, tapers, allowances and premiums are being either uprated or, in some cases, not uprated. In fact, to describe the statement as uprating is slightly misleading. In fact, it is a non-uprating statement, because more than 100 of those rates, tapers, allowances and premiums are not being uprated. Many have not been uprated for some years. In a welfare system in which people, depending on their needs and conditions, face about 450 different benefit options, little wonder that some find that system highly complex.
	Ours has been described as the most complicated welfare system in the world, and it is hard for many of our constituents to navigate their way around it. While I welcome the improvements that the Government are making in relation to pensioners being able to make one phone call to claim several benefits—the Minister referred to those—many people who are not pensioners have needs that are just as great and find the system almost impossible to navigate. I hope that the Government take more cognisance of the importance of the issue of complexity and do more to simplify the benefits system.
	I put one proposal on the table, which Ministers have previously welcomed in general terms, as did the recent Freud review—the introduction of a single working age benefit. That significant simplification would make the landscape for people of working age much easier to understand and it would promote people getting back into work. Good intentions have been expressed on the issue from time to time, not least by the new Secretary of State during Question Time on Monday, but I hope that the Minister will say that we can achieve some progress in investigating it. I think that would bring great benefit to this country.
	Likewise, in considering the range of different items that we are uprating today, it is important to realise that part of the complexity is created by the means-tested nature of those benefits. That is particularly true in relation to pensioners. I shall return to that matter.
	The next general issue is one that the hon. Member for Newport, West highlighted. In some cases, the benefits that we are uprating are inadequate to meet the tasks that we set for them, and that is expressed nowhere more clearly than in the poverty statistics. The hon. Member for Hertsmere highlighted from the Conservative Front Bench the problems that we have with many of the poverty figures, such as the recent rises in child poverty and the recent rises in poverty among people of working age. The Minister made the point that things have got better since 1997. That is true, but the more recent statistics suggest that there has been a change in that trend. We await the next set of figures to see whether that is continued, but none of us should be complacent about it.
	That applies, too, in the context of the rising inequality in British society. Consider the recent statistics on that front. The Gini coefficient, which is the recognised measure of inequality, is rising again. The Gini coefficient in the most recent year for which figures are available is the same as it was when the Government took office, so inequality is also a huge factor here. The latest figures suggest that child poverty is going up, and those for 2005-06 were 500,000 higher than the Government would have needed to meet their target for the previous year.
	It is right to debate the question of child poverty: the targets are to halve child poverty by 2010 and to abolish it by 2020, but a great deal more needs to be done if those targets are to be met. I am happy to reiterate—I note that the hon. Member for Hertsmere did not explicitly do this—my party's commitment to the goal of ending child poverty by 2020. I had hoped that that was a matter of cross-party agreement.
	The Government are way off beam in terms of meeting their targets, so I hope that the Minister is listening to these points and will take them back to his colleagues. Those targets are important and I hope that Members in all parts of the House share in that.
	It is interesting to note that the Department's Harker review highlighted the fact that the important area to focus on in tackling child poverty is the impact on families—often two-parent families in which no one is working and people who might be receiving many of the benefits that we are dealing with today. There has been little progress on that front.
	I think that in addition to our annual debates on uprating orders which, as has been pointed out, are not amendable, there should be a process allowing more general questions about the adequacy of the benefits system to be reviewed, perhaps once in each Parliament. There could perhaps be an independent review leading to a parliamentary debate. The Minister will say that there are enormous financial implications, and that is true, but none the less we need an opportunity to discuss those broader questions.
	Much of what the Government are doing with the benefits system is rightly intended to get more people off benefits and into work. We share the objective, but it must be said that "mixed messages" does not begin to describe the range of signals that have been sent to people on benefit over the past few weeks in the pronouncements of various Ministers. On the one hand, it seems that people in social housing will have their houses taken away from them by the housing Minister if they do not comply with the Government's requirements. On the other, what the Prime Minister has said suggests that additional sums are likely to be payable to those who try to find their way into work. Most recently, it has been proposed that people should be obliged to work for four weeks when they have been on benefit for two years.
	None of that has been mentioned today, but it suggests that, after 10 years of no success on the broader issues of welfare reform, the Government are anxious to give the public the impression that they are tough on those issues. I think their record shows that they should make much more effort to invest in the support that is needed to take people off benefits and return them to work. The macho talk that we are hearing is not particularly helpful, although I recognise that the benefits system should contain a degree of conditionality to deal with those who choose not to comply.
	We need to understand the methods by which benefits are delivered to claimants, and to determine whether those methods are adequate. The Minister referred to take-up. I welcome some of the improvements that he has introduced, such as the telephone support available to those of pensionable age who want a wider assessment of all the benefits that they can claim, but it is notable that the trend in Government has been towards delivering services over the telephone and away from face-to-face contact. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to deal with many claimants over the telephone—particularly the most vulnerable, who will be claiming many of the benefits that we are discussing.
	The social fund commissioner's annual report, with which Members will be familiar, deals specifically with the delivery of social fund support over the telephone. Seven call centres were examined, and although one proved to be relatively successful—one call in five was answered—astonishingly, only seven calls in 400 were answered overall. If we want benefits to reach the people who claim them, that certainly needs to be improved. The Minister spoke of his wish to pursue pilots on take-up. I am sure that he has some good ideas, but I note in passing that although the Department paid for a couple of extra staff members for Highland council in my constituency to facilitate take-up, it withdrew the funding this year. Even that fairly small-scale assistance in one part of the country has now been removed.
	The Government still have not told us whether they intend to replace the Post Office card account, which many claimants use to collect their benefits, with a product delivered by the Post Office. I hope that that will be clarified shortly. I also observe an uncomfortable straw in the wind: the Government have not provided for the new local housing allowance, which replaces housing benefit, to be collected through a post office card account.
	The hon. Member for Hertsmere rightly draw attention to the amount of fraud and error in the benefits system. The Government have made progress in reducing fraud, but at the expense of a significant increase in both official and customer error. I would link the customer error directly to the complexity of the system.
	One of the specific benefits we are dealing with today is the winter fuel payment. Outrageously, it is not being uprated. In 2003, its value was £200, as it still is in 2008.

John Butterfill: May I point out that I am the first Opposition Back Bencher to be able to speak in this debate? Only one other Labour Back Bencher has spoken, and nearly all the time has gone, if we want to hear the Minister wind up, which I am sure we all do. I shall therefore be very brief.
	The issue of the guaranteed minimum pensions and their uprating has hardly been mentioned. A great opportunity has been lost in recent pensions legislation to get rid of guaranteed minimum pensions altogether. They could have been taken out of the system if some creative thinking had been applied. As it is, they cost a lot of money in administration for those few employers who still have defined-benefit schemes and add an enormous amount to the cost. The failure to uprate them fully in line with RPI—the capping procedure—means that a further burden rests on the employers, and that is not what was originally intended. A thorough review of the way in which GMP works is long overdue.
	There are other problems relating to the administration. For example, many schemes have found that the information coming from HM Revenue and Customs and the National Insurance Contributions Office has been either misleading or incorrect. That again causes problems for the employers who are running the schemes. It is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed.
	At the moment we have a surplus of indices, which appears almost designed to confuse the general public who are entitled to benefits. We have RPI, the RPI minus X, the consumer prices index and the Rossi index, which is lower than all the others. Most people cannot understand them. Why is it that those who seek income-related benefits, such as jobseeker's allowance, housing benefit and income support, should be discriminated against by the use of the Rossi index, which is lower than all the other indices? Does the Minister think that jobseekers do not have to pay rent, mortgage interest or council tax? Why are those items omitted from the index, when those people often have to pay them?

Anne Main: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill) for being brief, because many of us have something to say about the uprating.
	We all agree that benefits are supposed to support those in need and ensure a decent standard of living for those whose income falls short, but they were never meant to be a lifestyle choice or a refuge for scroungers or fraudsters. Unfortunately, as the hon. Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) said, many of those who do not claim benefits are those in the greatest need, so benefits are not going where they are supposed to go.
	While we need to get rid of some of the flagrant abuses in the system, we also need the shake-up of the system that the Minister mentioned to ensure that genuine claimants do not lose out to benefit cheats. The Government know that they have to get a grip on the issue, because taxpayers too often read in the media about high profile cases of people making multiple fraudulent claims and seeing this country as a soft touch. Benefit fraud was nearly three and a half times as high in 2004 as it was in 1999, and was the second most commonly committed fraud offence in England and Wales after obtaining property by deception. The estimated loss to the Department for Work and Pensions in that period was just under £1 billion.
	The uprating is fine, but not if all it does is provide more for fraudsters to target. As the judge said in the case I mentioned earlier, it was disturbing that alarm bells had not rung earlier. We need a better communication system not only to get benefits to where they are supposed to go, but to ensure that we are not losing out to fraudulent claimants who see us as soft touch with few checks and balances in the system.
	I am also surprised that it has not been mentioned that today's uprating of benefits will also affect some EU claimants who have come into the country and claimed for children who do not live here. Many of my colleagues and people in the street find that somewhat bizarre. I look forward to the Minister's explanation of whether we can put in place any measures to crack down on fraud and to ensure that only genuine payments are made through the system as regards any benefits that are paid outside our country's shores. I have serious concerns that if the level of fraud in our country is not being cracked down on, the level of fraud outside this country might be even more enormous. I find it worrying that we are not putting in place the same checks as we are putting in place in this country when it comes to dealing with some 14,000 migrants who claim child benefit for children who do not live in this state, costing our taxpayers at least £250,000. That is a worrying situation.
	Another issue that was not raised too frequently in the debate is fuel poverty. We have heard about the winter fuel payment, but that goes to the elderly and to pensioners. Fuel poverty affects many of my constituents—I have referred to this before—and 16 per cent. of homes in St. Albans find themselves in fuel poverty. Many of those families receive multiple benefits, so they will welcome the uprating. It is very worrying that the Government are missing their fuel poverty target. I know that the Energy Bill is in Committee, but we need to put in place better systems to ensure social tariffs and to direct benefits to alleviate fuel poverty for those families who suffer from it. Of course, many of those families have children, too.
	Part of the problem has been communication about how benefits are claimed. I tried to introduce a private Member's Bill not long after I came to the House to try to encourage people to take up benefits on behalf of those who are terminally ill. Indeed, the uptake of that benefit—the disability living allowance—is still woefully poor. I was assured that communication from the Government would improve. Unfortunately, I have not seen that improvement. I welcome the warm words about encouraging pensioners through a phone call or through other means to take up pensioner benefits, but I have heard the same encouraging words before about people who are diagnosed as terminally ill and are unaware of the benefits that they are entitled to claim. I hope that the Government will take on board the fact that people who need benefits at various stages in their life—particularly towards the end of their life—need clarity and simplicity in the system so that they get the benefits to which they are entitled. I do not feel that there has been any movement on that, and that is a shame.
	In St. Albans, we have seen a rather good report about targeting people in order to stop fraud. Yet again, we fell down on the subject of communication about how to access benefits. That was also highlighted in a report by the Public Accounts Committee.
	The uprating of benefits is extremely welcome in the case of those families who are truly deserving. I do not welcome the fact that fraudsters see the uprating as an extra few pounds in their pocket, nor the fact that they will not be stopped from claiming fraudulently. As the hon. Member for Newport, West said, we will not welcome it if the benefits are uprated and then sit idle and unclaimed by those who truly deserve to claim them. The Minister should put on his thinking cap and ensure that the benefits are not only uprated but made truly available to those who deserve to claim them.

Charles Walker: I am grateful to be called to speak in this lively debate. I am delighted that I am the fourth Back Bencher to have the chance to say my piece.
	I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir John Butterfill) about the use of various indexes. We in the House find them very confusing indeed and we are meant to be the professionals, and I know for certain that my constituents are completely baffled by the difference between the consumer prices index, the retail prices index and Rossi, which my hon. Friend mentioned—they probably think that Rossi is an Italian football player. We owe it to the public to be transparent when we talk about inflation. I do not think it is beyond the wit of man for the great brains in this place and the civil service to come up with just one index that accurately reflects the cost of living.
	I want to touch on the subject of pensioners. I am delighted that they will have a much-needed increase in their pension, because they are often the people with the least disposable income and, indeed, the smallest income. However, I do not share the Government's enthusiasm for what has been achieved over the past 10 years. In my constituency, like many others, pensioners struggle hard to make ends meet. Council tax seems to go up by about 5 per cent. year on year, and much of the increase is because councils have to deliver central Government initiatives that are either underfunded or completely unfunded. The cost of fuel for pensioners is going up at an extremely high rate, which is not adequately reflected in the allowances they receive to pay for their fuel, particularly in the winter months.

Charles Walker: I do not want this to be a partisan debate, but my hon. Friend makes a good point. When she was discussing the plight of her constituents in St. Albans, there was some sneering from the Labour Benches. I point out to those Members that there are many thousands of Labour voters in St. Albans—indeed, it was a Labour seat until the last general election when my hon. Friend won it for the Conservatives. I was slightly annoyed by the sneering, which injected a slightly sour tone into the debate, but I am sure those Labour Members are very sorry about it.
	I return to heating and fuel for pensioners. I am not a great class warrior, but like my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning) I am a member of a trade union and I feel that there is a whiff of the Cedrics at British Gas. I was slightly concerned to hear that the company is making record profits when many pensioners are struggling to pay their bills. British Gas needs to have a long hard think about what it is doing. I am not against profit at all—profit is paid into pension funds—but I am really concerned that energy companies are making large sums of money off the back of some hard-pressed people in our communities. Pensioners are paying more for staple foods and the cost of bought-in care is increasing.
	I shall touch briefly on incapacity benefit. I am delighted that people who are genuinely ill and unable to work will receive an uplift in their benefits. It is important that they have quality of life, although of course it will not be the same as if they were in work, but I hope that for many of them it is manageable. However, like many Members, I am concerned about the increase in the number of people in receipt of incapacity benefit. Being on benefit is no way to live if there is another option, so I hope that the Government are really committed to getting more people off incapacity benefit and back to work. Many people who have been out of work for a long period begin to doubt their ability to go back to the workplace; mental health issues creep in and there is loss of confidence. I hope that collectively, across the Chamber, we can come together to ensure that people who can work have the chance to do so.
	I was pleased that there will be some adjustment to tax credits, but I am concerned that they are not necessarily the answer in the long term. All of us will have heard in our surgeries the harrowing cases of people in receipt of tax credits who are being pursued for back payments of between £4,000 and £7,000. One of the fundamental problems in this country is that people start paying tax on their income far too early. I have said it before in the Chamber, I say it now, and I will say it again.
	It is incumbent on a civilised society to ensure that hard-working families whose earnings are at or near minimum wage level hold on to as much of their earnings as possible, rather than having their earnings taken off them by Government, through tax, and then laundered back to them in the form of tax credits. That robs people of their self-respect, and it is not the best way of helping those at the bottom of the income scale. Again, I am not seeking to make a partisan attack; that is just my fundamental belief, as a Member of Parliament and as a member of society. I hope that when our time comes and we are in government—as we will be, because we still live in a democracy—we will address the issue.
	I represent Broxbourne, which is full of generous people who understand the need to look after the old, the infirm and those who are struggling between jobs, either because they are made unemployed through no fault of their own, or because they are having a difficult time. However, there is concern among all our constituents about the growth in the number of professional claimants—claimants who think that the state is there to support their way of life, and who think that they have no obligation to the state. When social security was created, the idea was that people paid into a fund that acted as a safety net, and could draw on it in their time of need. That is a noble, lasting, good idea. However, I am terribly concerned that a whole section of society think that they can draw on that fund, but have no obligation to support it or make any contribution towards it in their life.
	If we are to retain long-term confidence in our system of social security, we need to make sure that it is seen to be fair—that those who have paid into it are at the head of the queue, and that it is there for them in their time of need. All of us will know of horrible cases in our constituencies in which people with successful lives, who may not have been earning a lot of money but who had stable jobs, a stable family life and a stable home, suddenly suffered a great tragedy or an illness. Those people's lives can unravel incredibly quickly, and they find it difficult to access services and benefits. They struggle to keep themselves together. Sometimes they face losing their house or their children—they face all sorts of tragedies—yet on the other hand some people who have never done a stroke of work in their life, have never contributed towards society in any reasonable way, seem to sail through everything, and have everything laid on for them. We must put hard-working people and families at the forefront of our benefits system.
	The  Daily Mail would have us believe that millions of immigrants are coming to this country and abusing our system. Of course there will be some—a minority—who do that. We must be mindful of that and we must not allow it to happen. However, I get annoyed when newspapers attack immigrant communities and fail to reflect the fact that there are many people born and bred in this country who abuse and cheat the system. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. I support any measures that ensure that people who do not have a right to access benefits do not get their hands on them.

Mike O'Brien: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I am trying to deal with a large number of points rather quickly.
	The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West mentioned the uprating of guaranteed minimum pensions. GMPs ceased to accrue from April 1997, but past rights still exist. The Pensions Act 2007 allowed schemes to convert those rights to normal scheme rights, and the aim is to commence that legislation from, we hope, April 2009.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) raised several issues. He is right to say that the disability facilities grant has not been uprated since December 2005, when we implemented the proposal to exclude children's cases from means-testing. We are expecting to update the regulations shortly and we will also consider a packet of changes. The Government regard the DFG programme as an important means of helping more than 35,000 older and disabled people each year to continue to live independently. We have substantially increased funding for the programme from £57 million in 1997 to £146 million in 2008-09. Further steps will be announced shortly.
	My hon. Friend also spoke about the national insurance fund. Increasing the basic state pension to the level of the guarantee credit would cost about £20 billion a year. By 2015, that would rise to about £80 billion a year, which would wipe out the balance in the national insurance fund in a matter of years.
	My hon. Friend mentioned the capital disregard in relation to pension credit. He is right to say that there is an issue. We have focused on trying to help the poorest. We know that 80 per cent. of those eligible for pension credit have less than £6,000 in capital.
	I could deal at great length with equality for women, which is a complex issue. I am aware that there have been problems with recording home responsibilities protection in the past. Urgent work is under way to identify those affected. Where we find errors, we are correcting them. The Pension Service has been in contact with nearly 500,000 people, mostly women, regarding payment of contributions for the years 1996-97 to 2001-02. We are also contacting male pensioners who have had particular problems because of the lack of HRP recording in the past. We are trying to make sure that we get the issue right.
	My hon. Friend also mentioned the cliff edge; I will soon have to deal with that during discussion of the Pensions Bill. That will be a better time to deal with the detailed arguments on what I accept is an important issue.
	Since 1997, pensioner poverty has reduced by more than a third to 17 per cent., through targeted support such as pension credit and about £11 billion of extra funding. We have lifted more than 1 million pensioners out of relative poverty after housing costs. Due to the tax and benefit changes that we have introduced, pensioner households are on average £1,500 a year or £29 a week better off in 2007-08 than they would have been under the 1997 system. The poorest pensioner households are about £2,000 a year or £42 a week better off.
	I turn to the working-age issues, a significant number of which have been raised. Our aspiration is for a fair and inclusive society that offers greater opportunity and independence for people. The uprating orders move us further towards that. They help tackle poverty and exclusion and ensure security in retirement. In the past 10 years, we have made great strides in dealing with poverty and creating greater opportunity. For the first time in this country, we can look forward with greater confidence to full employment, eradicating child poverty and delivering justice to pensioners.
	Work is the best route out of poverty and today more people are in work than ever before: 29.4 million people, according to the latest figures—up 175,000 in the past three months. We have the second highest employment rate in the G7. Since 1997, employment has gone up by nearly 3 million; under the Conservative Government it was down by 3 million. Under Labour, employment has gone up in every region and country of the UK. It has gone up in the neighbourhoods and cities neglected by the Conservative party. It has gone up for disadvantaged groups: 300,000 more lone parents, 900,000 more disabled people, 1 million more from ethnic minorities and 1.5 million more older workers are in work. The number of job vacancies remains at 670,000.
	I agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) about migration. However, I say to him that although migrants have come to this country to work, there are still 670,000 vacancies, and those are jobs for workers in this country to apply for. There are people on incapacity benefit whom we want to go into those jobs. There is still a demand for employment in this country and we still have a strong economy. The hon. Gentleman's points about some of our media, who tend to make unfair comments, are not acceptable.
	Several times, Conservative Members spoke of dealing with child poverty. A target is not a quota but a direction of travel and a measurement of whether we get there on schedule. That may be subject to events and circumstances, which may interfere, but a target tells people where we want to be. Let me be clear that we are sticking to our direction of travel. People know what our ideals, targets, direction and aims are.
	Do the Tories have any aims, ideals, targets or direction on poverty? We know what their direction was from their record. Under the Conservatives, child poverty doubled and we had the highest child poverty rate in the industrial world. More than one in four children lived in poverty and the value of child benefit was cut in real terms. That was not the 1930s, but the Tory early-1990s and they have still not learned. They will not pledge to eradicate child poverty; for them, that is merely some vague aspiration. Their policies would push millions back into poverty.
	We want to see those policies stopped and to see instead the creation of a fairer society. These orders are part of the process of creating that fairer society—helping pensioners, helping those who need work to find work, and helping those who need benefits to get them. They take us a step closer to providing opportunity to all, and I commend them to the House.
	 It  being Six o'clock , Mr. Deputy Speaker  proceede d forthwith to put the Question, pursuant to Order [6 February].
	 Question agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2008, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker  then proceeded to put the Question required to be put at that hour.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With the leave of the House, I will put motions 4 and 5 together.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Yvette Cooper: In a moment.
	We have been clear that we are taking the bank into public ownership not because we believe there is a public function that we need it to fulfil, but in order to safeguard the stability of the financial system and the interests of the taxpayer. I should inform the House that the Bank of England also has an exemption from the Act on the information that it holds in relation to the provision of private banking services and relations services. That is included in schedule 1 in part VI of the Freedom of Information Act, so it is written into the Act. That is important.

Stuart Bell: It is not for me to rule that in or out; that is a question for our Front Bench. I have, however, been quietly asked to allow the Liberal spokesman to make an intervention, and I will be happy to do so. Let me simply say that if the Lords spend so much time—two days—on producing amendments such as those we are discussing in this House now, then us having more time would have made very little difference.

Jeremy Browne: Let me see whether I can get to that once I have concluded the two substantive points that I wish to discuss, the first of which is on the independent audit and the second of which is on freedom of information.
	The Liberal Democrat position is that an independent audit is appropriate, and it is strengthened by the arguments that we have heard about Granite in this House and in the other place. There has been an extremely worrying development, because there still is no feasible alternative to nationalisation, but that does not mean that the Government can sweep the Granite issue under the carpet. Some £8 billion of unsecured loans are on Northern Rock's balance sheet, but none is on Granite's, so there is an imbalance that is potentially highly damaging to the taxpayer. We need a new valuation that gives taxpayers confidence that when we undertake to buy this company, we are buying a proposition that offers us a reasonable deal.
	Commercial confidentiality is specifically excluded from the freedom of information provisions. The suspicion must be that the Government think that there is something to hide and that they would rather not be exposed by freedom of information. Northern Rock would have benefited from more rather than less scrutiny over the past few years. Some companies in the public sector that have commercial rivals are subject to freedom of information provisions. The Royal Mail is a case in point—it competes with independent, private courier companies—and National Savings and Investments is another example of the phenomenon.
	Northern Rock is looking to engage very expensive consultants and it might well pay bonuses to staff, so it seems only reasonable that we are in a position to know the scale of the undertaking being made by its management. The Minister says that the problem is that as this is only a transitory condition and the company will be sold back to the private sector—she was not specific on the precise time scale—it would not be appropriate to subject these measures to freedom of information. Of course there is nothing to prevent the Government from reintroducing provisions to exclude Northern Rock from freedom of information measures when it is sold back into the private sector. We have no assurance of when that will be, and it is surely much better to act on the precautionary principle and for the Government to support the relevant amendment.
	In conclusion, the Government are taking an extremely high-handed approach on this matter. The Liberal Democrats have sought to be a wise counsel and good friend to the Government throughout their difficulties over the past five months. That is entirely the spirit in which, in the other place, we supported the amendments before us this evening. We are not seeking to play opportunistic games. We seek to make the legislation, which is being introduced in short order, better than it would otherwise be. Rather than setting their face against good advice from my party and the Conservative party, the Government would do well to be less stubborn and to heed the warnings that we have given them in the past and are putting before the House this evening.

Jim Knight: I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) on securing this debate. I am grateful to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Jon Cruddas) for raising these matters with me in conversations here, in earlier questions and in correspondence. I am also grateful to the parents and children who have written to the Department about the proposed school closures.
	Parents, pupils, staff and the wider community are always rightly concerned about the effects of any changes to local school provision. As today's debate shows, that is true of every community throughout the country, not just the rural ones that have been in the news in the past few weeks.
	Understandably, people have strong views and they want them to be heard, and it is important that local authorities listen to the people who will be most directly affected and to their representatives, such as hon. Members, in order to get these difficult decisions right. Before I respond to the issues raised concerning Havering, I want to set the context of the way in which local authorities act as strategic commissioners for school places.
	The local authority is now the commissioner rather than the direct provider of educational services—a vision that we set out in October 2005 in the White Paper "Higher Standards: Better Schools for All", and put into law with the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Authorities are responsible for managing the supply and demand for schools in their areas. They are well placed for that role; they are certainly better placed to make those decisions than I am, sitting in Whitehall. They can use their local knowledge and local consultation to ensure that schools serve the needs of their communities and provide good quality education in the most cost-effective way. To do that, they have to adapt to changing circumstances.
	As birth rates fall and rise in different areas, local authorities have to consider what schools they need and where they should be, which may mean that not all schools are of the right size or in the right place. Too many surplus places can represent a poor use of resources, so authorities with high levels of surplus places will consider reducing them as part of their planning strategy. But, of course, that does not mean rushing to close schools.
	Capacity can also be reduced by removing temporary accommodation, consolidating split site schools and by rationalising school space. I have said repeatedly in recent weeks that local authorities should think creatively about their future planning. They will need to assess whether accommodation can be adapted for alternative use, broadening the services that their schools offer in line with the likely future pattern of children's services as a whole and with the needs of local communities. They can look at forming federations or consider collocating schools with other services to ensure that their buildings are viable. As I said, it is for the local authority to take the lead in that process, as the strategic commissioner of school places, while taking account of the particular local circumstances. Part of the new role for authorities is to provide greater choice and diversity for parents and children, as the hon. Gentleman said. The 2006 Act makes it clear that if a local authority wants to open any new school for pupils of compulsory school age, it must publish a notice inviting bids from other providers—in effect, start a competition. We introduced the change to bring new talent and energy to school provision. Standards of teaching and learning will be improved if there is a diverse range of good schools for parents to choose from.
	The change is starting to work. We are already seeing energetic and dynamic providers coming forward in some of the competitions that have been run and in those that are running, including those for new primary schools. The hon. Gentleman is right that the council won the competition in Haringey—that just shows that competitions are not stacked against local authorities—but we have also held competitions for new secondary schools in Lincolnshire, as well as two competitions in Southampton, and there are six competitions for primary schools in Salford, two in Devon, one in Cambridge, one in West Sussex and one in Northamptonshire.
	I am sure that officers such as Andrew Ireland in Havering will be looking closely at the experience in those authorities, as will we, because the hon. Gentleman is right: in these early days of competition, we need to be able to look at the experience. I am particularly concerned to ensure that there should be enough providers out there wanting to enter such competitions, especially for primary schools—there is no question but that a number are interested in secondary schools—to ensure that the competitions genuinely are competitions.
	That brings me to the reorganisation in Havering that the hon. Gentleman has raised in this debate. As he said, Havering's primary schools have 10 per cent. surplus places, with eight of its 65 primaries having more than 25 per cent. surplus places. It is sensible that the authority should address that surplus. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the local authority wishes to open two new community schools to replace Dunningford and Ayloff schools, and Edwin Lambert and the Manor schools, yet without holding competitions.
	We recognise that there may be cases where a competition will not necessarily be appropriate in a particular area. We have indicated that we might be prepared to give consent in three circumstances: first, straightforward amalgamations of infant and junior schools where a replacement primary school is proposed; secondly, where there is to be a reorganisation of religious schools in the area and schools with a particular religious character are to be replaced by schools with the same religious character; or thirdly, where an independent proposer proposes a new school to increase diversity in the area, rather than in response to a local authority's need to reorganise.
	We have provided that, with the consent of the Secretary of State, proposals to open a new school can be published by the local authorities or other providers without the need to run a competition, if the proposals meet those criteria. However, we have made it clear in debates, including during the passage of the 2006 Act—my first days as Minister for Schools were spent taking the Bill through Committee—that consent would be given only in exceptional cases, such as those that I have described.
	I assure the hon. Gentleman that careful consideration was given to the case made by Havering for consent to publish proposals for two new community primary schools without competition, but we were simply not satisfied that there was a compelling argument to depart from our clear policy in those cases. We did not believe that the interests of the area would definitely—that is the test for us—be best served by the proposed new schools or that they would definitely contribute to raising local school standards and increase diversity and parental choice. We believe that competition would have tested all those questions. I am therefore pleased to hear that the hon. Gentleman has continued to promote the idea of competition with his local authority.
	Instead, the local authority has chosen to amalgamate existing schools without running school competitions. It is legally entitled not to hold a competition if it is proposing to close one school and make alterations to the other, rather than to establish a new school, but we would still have preferred to see the competitions. The local authority could have closed the two pairs of schools and held competitions for the two replacement schools, which would have provided an opportunity for other providers to set out alternative proposals. Havering could have obtained approval to enter its own community school proposals into those competitions, which could have been considered alongside those from any other providers. If Havering had been the best in the competition, as Haringey was, the schools adjudicator would have found for the council. The most important point is that had that been done, local people would have been able to submit their views on all the proposals. The local authority's proposals would have been considered on merit against any others, and the questions raised by the community about why Dunningford and the Manor school were selected for closure—and the resulting sense of disadvantage among pupils and staff—could have been avoided, because there would have been a transparent competition process.
	I know that time was an issue. The local authority expressed concern that it had already carried out detailed consultation on its plans before the new requirement for school competitions came into force. However, I gently remind it that our proposals were well heralded. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 was introduced in February of that year, over a year and half before Havering applied to the Department. Following Royal Assent, detailed draft regulations and guidance were issued in November 2006 which made clear that we expected competitions to be run for new schools. The local authority should therefore have recognised that the new measures would affect their plans, and should have taken them into account earlier.
	Local consultation is a critical element of any proposed reorganisation. Authorities must set out exactly what they propose to do, explain why, and explain how people will be affected. I know that Havering has consulted extensively on its reorganisation plans, and its current document includes changes that it made after listening to people's views. I note that the local authority has gone some way towards dealing with local concerns by making a commitment to secure equality for all staff when determining the new staffing structures, and to avoid redundancies. However, consultation is not the same as choice, and as I said, our preference—and, I think, that of the hon. Gentleman—would have been for a competition.
	I do not believe that that would have seriously delayed progress. Competitions could have been well under way by now, and decisions could have been made by the schools adjudicator in midsummer. The process would have involved a competition involving all interested parties, with a variable time scale. An initial notice would have been published inviting bids for the establishment of a new school, in a local newspaper and in a conspicuous place in the area served by the school, with a deadline of four months for proposals. A second notice would then have been published summarising the proposals submitted. It would have had to be published within three weeks of the end of the first notice period.
	There would have been a period for representations, allowing comments and objections to be submitted in relation to all proposals. During that period, a public meeting would have had to take place. There would then have been a decision by the local authority, or the schools adjudicator if the local authority had submitted proposals or had a role in the trust of a proposed trust school. Decisions are generally made within two months, and implementation would have followed. I think it is possible to complete the process in less than a year, and I believe that the schools adjudicator could have made a decision if Havering had chosen to enter the competition in midsummer. However, I accept that it is within the law for the local authority to amalgamate schools in this way, and it is for the authority to respond to concerns about its particular approach.

Jim Knight: I was about to say exactly that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned issues raised in Andrew Ireland's letter, such as the way in which capital transfers and staff transfers would work. I should be happy to write to him, and I am sure that he would want to pass that information on to the authority.
	Let me end by stressing the Government's commitment to ensuring that schools receive the funding that they need to raise standards and deliver high-quality education. Over the next three years, we will provide £21.9 billion of capital support for investment in schools, compared with less than £700 million a year about 10 years ago. Over the next three years, Havering and its schools have been allocated £46 million of capital support. That includes £13.2 million of devolved formula capital for schools, £8.4 million of primary capital money and £8 million of targeted capital for 14-19 diplomas, special educational needs and disability needs. That allocation, averaging more than £15 million a year, compares with an allocation to Havering of less than £300,000 in 1996-97.
	I want to stress again that raising standards is at the heart of our agenda. That sometimes requires difficult decisions or imaginative solutions to changing patterns of need and, crucially, local authorities are responsible for these decisions—and, having listened to parents, they must take them.
	I will reflect on the issues raised in the debate, and I will continue to learn the lessons. I hope that authorities will learn the lessons from each other as well. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising these issues tonight.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes to Twelve o'clock.